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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

Chap. Copyright No. 

^STS' 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 



THE NEW WORLD, With Other Verse 



12 



II.50 



*' Mr. Block has produced a very noble poem, a 
poem not unworthy of its great theme, and that stands 
in eloquent contrast to many efforts that we will not 
for a moment draw from kindly oblivion by naming. 
Mr. Block's poem is in four sections — "The Old 
World," "The Man," "The Deed," and "The New 
World" — wi th a dedication to the " Women of America." 
The first and last sections, with their poetic character- 
ization of the supreme moments of history, show the 
author's work at its best, for they afford him the most 
opportunities for the fine philosophical generalizations 
towards which he is led by his natural bent." — The 
Dial. 



G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS, New York & London ' 



CAPRICCIOS 



CAPRICCIOS 

/ 

LOUIS J. BLOCK 




G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 

NEW YORK AND LONDON 

Zbc IRnicfterbocfter press 

1898 






H2I7 



Copyright, 1898 

BY 

LOUIS J. BLOCK 




TWC^'^^'^'^S RECEIVED. 



Ube ftnfclierbocfier Press* View Uorft 



1898. 



To My Friend 
MRS. MARTHA D. WOLCOTT 






Contents 



PAGE I 

The Birth and Death of the Prince . . . i ] 

On the Mountain Top 55 '' 

At the Foot of the Rainbow 77 :^! 

Myriad-minded Man — An Imaginary Conversation 97 

The Day of Days— A Prothalamion .... 117 ? 



He was the master pure 

Of harmonies that allure 

With a faery charm as dear 

As the magic of the awakening year y 

Unto him came 

Umvorded songSy 
Miracles of flame, 

Melodious throngs, 
Dreams of the midsummer flights 
Woven of the golden lights 
The greatest of souls 

Gave from the realm the chief foy controls. 
Lore of the strange far lands 
The sweet Queen Titania commands. 
Colored and born 
Of the incense-wafting morn, 
Tone-moulded lily and rose, 
Hope-hearted Capriccios. 

May the propitious might above 
In the fair domains of love 
( The master hearkening, perhaps. 
Where the rule of the hours, 

vii 



And the long years' lapse ^ 
A?id the vast of space ^ 

Have surrendered their powers), 
Grant me the high-thoughted grace 
Once more to wield 

A part of the glory he knew, 
And generously yield 

Unto my speech a hue, 
A touch of the gladness, 
The vanishiftg sadness, 
That speed and glow 
Through his soft music's flow. 
Not that I hold, 
Eager and overbold, 
A scepter or throne 
In the regions of tone j 
Suave influences there, oh give 
That these frail blossoms may live 
A brief clear day 
Of hope-diffusing play, 
Bri^iging great light from the eyes 
Where the bi'ight stars of beauty arise, 
And fragrant breath from the lips 
That break the sun' s dim eclipse. 
And, i?i this latter and dusk-stoled time. 

Engirt of that light and warmed of that breath, 

My flowers may burst the sheath of their death, 
And bravely show forth the happier prime ^ 
When the gods and man, 

viii 



Being such friends as they only can. 

Reached the unenvying bliss that thrills 

Through equal conjoint wills. 

Bloojns that I nurtured and brought from my heart 

To grace you therewith the best of my art, 

Gently fulfill your destiny brief 

With the flush of your crowns and the green of your 

leaf, 
Word-moulded lily and deep -tinted rosCy 
My forward-looking Capriccios. 



IX 



THE BIRTH AND DEATH OF THE 
PRINCE 



Dramatis Personcs 

THE QUEEN 

THE LADY OF THE MERE 

MORGAUSE LE FAY 

ELAINE 

ENID 

THE KING 

ARTHUR 

MERLIN 



Three Queens, Ladies, Councillors, Knights, 
Sailors, People 



I. 

A castle near the sea-shore. The gardens extend down to 
the water. On either side heavy growths of wood, in front a 
succession of terraces with beds of flowers. In the clear sky 
of the middle night, the stars glitter restlessly. The moon is 
seen through the thick foliage of the trees. At intervals, the 
nightingale is heard as if preluding for a song. At the door 
of the castle stands Merlin ; with him, but seated on benches 
of stone, are Morgause le Fay, Elaine, and Enid. Merlin has 
been playing upon his harp, and rests lightly against it. 

MORGAUSE LE FAY 

The Star that we look for has not yet made its way 
above the horizon. Within the castle all is still ; 
the mother waits for the event. 

MERLIN 

I hear the voice of the wave; it cannot now be 
long. The life that thrills through the unresting 
waters rises more and more clearly into song ; the 
secret powers that are in the deeps of the sea seek 
for utterance, and their demand shall not be gain- 
said; the voices of the slender and fleeting ripples, 



CAPRICCIOS 

the roar of the loftiest billow, the vast murmur that 
reaches from farthest shore to shore, climb into 
thought and word. 

ELAINE 

There seems a movement amid the flowers; their 
perfume reaches me more keenly than ever before; 
I feel that they answer the voices of the sea; 1 cannot 
tell what dreams are stirring in me; my hopes are 
awakened, I am sure, by the movements and odors 
of the flowers. 

MERLIN 

It is near the middle hour of the night. 

ENID 

The bird breaks the silence anew; the thin clouds 
gather in the deep dark skies; the song arises and 
falls ; it will gain the height of its hope, and burst 
forth silvery and strong like the impassioned leap 
of a fountain in the moonlight. 

MERLIN 

The time has indeed arrived. 

There is silence for a while. Then there are heard hurry- 
ing steps in the castle. The agitation within seems intense. 
A lady appears at the door. She speaks to Merlin. 

4 



CAPRICCIOS 

THE LADY 

The Queen lies white and pulseless. Her eyes 
are closed and she does not move. Is there no 
help in your wisdom ? 

MERLIN 

The agony is not yet over, but the middle of the 
night approaches; at its height and crowning, the 
star will shine in the skies. In the morrow her joy 
will be at its full. Bear this to her; let the Queen 
drink from the vial. When it is emptied, let it be 
cast into the air from whence it came. 

He holds up a vial that sends forth light as if it were a self- 
luminous star. The water within it is the source of the light. 
It is frail as though a touch might shatter it, and so akin to 
the air, that at any moment one might expect it to fade and 
vanish into that ether. 

MERLIN 

Take it and fear not. 

The lady takes the vial, that flashes in her hand with a 
sudden but continuous brilliance, and she bears it with her 
into the castle. 

MERLIN (accompanying himself on his harp) 
The joy that bursts from the earth in flowers 
Flows through you, O great mother-life; 
The passion that glows in the light of stars 

5 



CAPRICCIOS 

Drink deep, O answering soul. 

The pulses that sweep through the flood of the 

world, 
The songs that are center of Time, 
Time, the up-climbing, are beating and surging 
Within you, sublime. 

Truths that the world importunate has longed for. 
Dreams that the eyes of great prophets have seen, 
God and mankind coalesced in one Beauty, 
Dwell in the chambers, the shrine of your soul. 
Under your heart you have known him, have borne 

him. 
Mother and lover and giver of breath ; 
All that you are, and all that your thought is, 
Into his growth you will lavishly pour; 
Wherefore the Son of the World and the Heavens, 
Waking, embodied, long hoped for, shall come. 
Earth's Reconciler, while strife shudders round us, 
Builder of Beauty and builder of Song! 

MORGAUSE LE FAY 

A faint pale light shines on the horizon above the 
water's edge. The sky there is one long stretch 
of dark. From the sea and the earth and heights 
of unscalable air, the molten flame quivers together 
and rounds into an orb of resplendent white. Lo! 
it is the star! 

6 



CAPRICCIOS 

ELAINE 

Swiftly it rises up the steeps of heaven; its 
brothers welcome it in rapid rays of gladness; 
I seem to hear them singing together. 

ENID 

The moon rests upon the sea, white and pallid; 
she yields the reign over the earth and sky to the 
newcomer; he is more bright than day ; to- 
morrow's sun will be his golden shade for such 
light is he that all his echoes are splendors. 

MERLIN 

The elder loveliness gives up its glory unto him 
even as the moon gives hers forever back unto the 
sun; the songs that have been nobly sung renew 
themselves transfigured in his nobler song. 

ELAINE 

Over the castle tower the white star stands amid the 
riot and the tumult of the dancing brotherhood of 
worlds. Fierce ecstasy sweeps through the earth 
as spring's young ardor through wild-pulsing veins. 
The hour has come. 

MERLIN 

The time is fully ripe. The earth receives high 
heaven; the rose of all the ages is about to bloom. 

7 



CAPRICCIOS 

ENID 

The flash and fury fall; the star sweeps down; I 
fear not the overcoming light; how strangely and 
swiftly it comes; it pauses over the old and mighty 
tower; can we sustain this radiance longer ? 
Water, sky, flowers, the castle gray, glow like the 
gates of paradise ; and now it is gone, vanished 
within these walls, that hold miraculously the 
strange propitious visitor. 

There is a sound of exultant music from within the castle. 
It swells and rises and then falls in enchanting cadence. The 
King, accompanied by knights and ladies, emerges from the 
great portal. The King approaches Merlin, about whom 
stand Morgause, Elaine, and Enid ; the rest, bearing torches, 
encircle them. 

THE KING 

Unto US a child is born. The prophetic years have 
been brought to their close; the new era opens; 
the bringing together of all that is or may be in 
this great point of time has come to pass; the light 
of the ages shines, and the seas and the mountains 
and the sky shall glow fair with an effulgence as of 
flowers. 

Throughout the remainder of the scene, the music within the 
castle makes as it were a pervasive atmosphere. Merlin 
strikes his harp continuously in a strange and heroic melody. 

8 



CAPRICCIOS 

MERLIN 

The uttermost ends of the earth shall hear him ; 
His voice has the strength and rush of the planets; 
The sound of many waters lives in his singing; 
Rejoice and praise him. 

THE KING 

What are thrones and crowns beside his utterance ? 
Power gives him her symbol and scepter; 
The earth hearkens his word and obeys it; 
Rejoice and praise him. 

THE KNIGHTS 

We are come with strength to his service; 
We shall know the flash and glow of his eyebeams ; 
We shall lift the spear and shield at his bidding; 
We rejoice and praise him. 

I' 

THE LADIES ' 

Our thoughts and our dreams shall fashion his 

garments ; 
Silk shall his robe be and golden; ' 

Fair shall he shine as the morning; 
We rejoice and we praise him. 

MORGAUSE LE FAY 

What has the sky that he has not ? 
From the uttermost reach of the heavens, 



CAPRICCIOS 

Night and light bring him offerings mighty; 
Rejoice and praise him. 

ELAINE 

Earth, springtime, and white-clad winter. 
Bring from your hearts your throbbing message, 
Blossoms, snowy or rose-red give him; 
Rejoice, rejoice and sing praises. 

ENID 

Winds that are soft as the growth of flowers. 
Storms that are wild as the throes of passion, 
Give unto him your wonderful secret; 
We, too, rejoice and praise him. 

A VOICE FROM THE HEIGHTS OF HEAVEN 

The splendor of Beauty is the face of Love; 
Lift your eyes that ye may see ; 
Open your hearts that ye may hear; 
Rejoice, rejoice and praise him. 

The music from the castle becomes predominant and envel- 
oping, and absorbs into itself the melody of Merlin, The 
curtain falls. 



ID 



CAPRICCIOS 
II. 

The castle and its gardens are aglow with the rich life of a 
morning in early summer. Merlin and Morgause le Fay are 
discovered with Arthur, who is now a boy about eight years 
old. 

ARTHUR 

I have brought these from the sea-shore. I have 
held others like them often in my hands, but these 
are prettier than any I have seen before. They have 
a soft and changing lustre all over them, and the pink 
within them fades into a white at the edges. The 
sea has made them with light clear waves and fingers, 
and with a touch like that my mother gives me as 
she stands beside me when I am falling asleep, and 
she kisses me, and then for a moment lays her hand 
against my cheek. 

MERLIN 

The sea has a strength that is more than tongue 
can speak; the fire in the center of the earth is 
not mightier; the fury of storms rushing across the 
black air is not swifter or more able to slay ; but 
her slender ripples know how to fashion and bring 
to sight these strange and wondrous things, so frail 
and yet so fine that your small fingers will crush 
them if you are not wary and full of thought. 

II 



CAPRICCIOS 

ARTHUR 

They are the flowers of the sea; even as the land 
bears blooms of many colors and forms, so does 
the sea bring forth its new and lovely growths. 
Also the air has its wonders; I watch the clouds as 
they speed by, and seem to know what message 
they wish to bring; and, at night, the stars in the 
deep darkness tell me of heights upon heights, and 
my dreams fleet beyond them all, and I touch a 
thought, not lighted up at first, but which slowly 
glows and shines with a glory that is more than all 
other flames or fires. 

MORGAUSE LE FAY 

It is the light at which all fires are lighted. Look 
at the race and riot of the golden flames across the 
unresting waters; could we but know them as they 
are, the secret of the sea would be told to us in a 
music sweeter than the touches which Merlin gives 
his harp under the silence of the woods, when he 
wanders there alone just after nightfall, and we 
listen to him in a trance of joy, until the melody 
dies away in the distance. Those sparks, tipping 
the unceasing waves, fall from the ever-giving sun; 
and sun gives to sun of its own fire and glow; and 
all of them receive what they have of splendor from 
that thought and dream of light wherein they live 
embosomed. 

12 



CAPRICCIOS 

MERLIN 

Hold the shell to your ear, and listen to the low 
sound which comes from it. 

ARTHUR 

I know that music very well, and often have felt it 
slowly making its soft and winding way into my 
changing dreams. 

MERLIN 

Keep your ear close to the shell; closer, closer yet; 
let not one smallest circle of sound escape you. 

ARTHUR 

What would you have of me, good master ? I am 
growing one with the faint and pale sweet tune. 

MORGAUSE LE FAY 

So must you ever be. Hold the shell closer, closer 
yet. 

ARTHUR 

Oh, now it comes. The great waters rush and 
flow and rush about me. The many winds sweep 
over them. The flowers of the garden and the 
castle walls fade into a gray dimness — and vanish. 
It is no longer to-day — it is a distant night, strange 
and deep and lampless. What is it that fleets 
through me ? 

13 



CAPRICCIOS 

MERLIN 

The shell is speaking to you ; do not lose one mur- 
mur, one merest shade of sound. 

ARTHUR 

I am one with the current and yet it does not drown 
me; nay, it is all mine and yours; nay, it is all his, 
and ours through him. 

MORGAUSE LE FAY 

There is naught which shall not be yours, if you 
hold it as from him, and give back to him as meet 
for service. 

ARTHUR 

The melody dies now into a tenderer loveliness, 
and begins to fail and pass, like starlight behind 
the moving pines. 

MERLIN 

Do you heed its inmost carolling ? 

ARTHUR 

Yea, master, as I gaze into those eyes of yours. 

MERLIN 

What mark you there ? 

ARTHUR 

I see the mighty mist which clothes in dark that is 
14 



CAPRICCIOS 

neither night nor day the web of things; I see the 
waters surging all around me; I hear the first wild 
rush of many winds ; the stars shine forth from out 
the veil ; the mountains tower, and grasses clothe 
the rocks; and now I hear the voices of men and 
herds, and children singing when the golden sun 
climbs up the rosy, cloud-rejoicing sky. What 
more is there to come ? 

The King and Queen enter from the portal of the castle. 
With them are Enid and Elaine. As they descend the steps, 
Morgause le Fay begins a chant, to which Merlin strikes his 
harp murmuringly. 

MORGAUSE LE FAY 

Golden in the mighty Heavens 

Dwells the fair God, 

Not unreached of Desire, 

Not unclasped of the Soul. 

Through the vast and unplummeted spaces, 

Through the rush and roll of the ages, J/l 

The heave and the toil of the mountains, 

The rising and falling of waters, 

The soft sweet step of the grasses, 

The deep-hued flood of the flowers, 

The torment and struggle of races, 

The splendor of calm-voiced peace. 

Forward unresting has moved the Purpose, 

15 



I 



CAPRICCIOS 

The Voice and the Dream of God. 
Not lost in the light's seclusion, 
Not high in a noble estrangement, 
Not circled by clouds and hidden, 
But toiling here with sweet labor, 
Awake in all hope and pure longing, 
Building the storm into calmness. 
Moulding the world like a blossom. 
Love, the sweet God of all God-head, 
Murmurs around and within us. 
Closelier hold the sea-shell, 
Deeplier know its glad message. 
Picture and song and statue and temple 
See arising before you. 
Telling the latter-day story. 
That the darkling days and the hours. 
That sad defeat and fierce struggle. 
That pitiful pain and its horror. 
Hold a marvelous mystery. 
Give way to a mighty joyance. 
Serve the divine and holy. 
Fade in the glory and shine everlasting. 

ARTHUR 

See, father, the wonderful shells, and I know now 
what the voice in them sings in the deeps of my 
heart. 
i6 



CAPRICCIOS 

MERLIN 

The sea and the sky and the air have been speak- 
ing to him. 

THE KING (touching his s7uord) 

That is well. Child, place your little hand upon 

the hilt. 

Arthur steps forward, and the sword-hilt glitters resplendent 
with its multitude of jewels. He places his tiny fingers upon 
it, and smiles up into the King's face. 

THE KING \i 

It is thus that another and stranger story thrills 
through you. Do you listen well ? 

ARTHUR 

My soul obeys you, my father. 

THE KING 

Afar off out of the mist they come in long line and 
wandering movement. Their feet are hurt by the 
toilsome ascent, and the roar of many storms is 
in their ears. The darkness hovers in their eyes, 
and they raise their savage hands to hurl and to 
batter and to strike. 

ARTHUR 

But here, O my father, is a lovely, hill-encircled 
glen. Blue is the gentle sky above it, and soft are 

17 



CAPRICCIOS 

the winds that blow around it. Silvery-leaved are 
the trees, and the soft gray fruit shows amid the foli- 
age. White winds the road to the sea-shore. Noble 
are the men who make their home here. Along 
the fair street the white statues shine like the gods 
themselves; out yonder do these sit on their moun- 
tain tops, serene beside their gold tables. There 
on the rock stands the white marvel of the ages, 
the goddess fronting the sea, friend and protect- 
ress. Mother of Beauty and Charm and Splendor, 
you do I feel pouring your life into my life-blood. 

THE KING 

Yet the march does not pause there. Do you hear 
the song that crashes through the stirring tree-tops, 
soaring above them, and striking against the very 
sun ? 

ARTHUR 

Aye, father; I see the fair-haired march of the 
conquerors; the lofty-browed prophetess leads them 
and guides; no mountains, nor seas, can withstand 
them; forth from the regions of stern-visaged 
winter they come, and warmer lands know their 
footsteps. Marvelous are the works which they 
rear; many-spired, like the waving tops of the 
forest, arise the shrines wherein dwells the God- 
head; and, oh, the wonder of the walls and the 
i8 



CAPRICCIOS 

ceilings ; fire and color and passion burst there 
into joyance, that is the very heart of the heavens; 
and through the long aisles, and billowing into the 
mighty arch, sweeps the sea of the song, that is 
Love's own secret and body. 

THE QUEEN 

Know you that mystery ? 

ARTHUR 

Mother, I look deep into your eyes. 

THE QUEEN 

Wonderfully came that child into this world of 
ours; short were the years of his travail and bitter; 
yet not one verge of the world shall feel not the 
strength of the word that fell from his lips. 

ARTHUR 

I dare not allow the vision to speed forth on the 
flow of my breath. The light around me is gol- 
den ; life is fair in the rays that pierce through it ; 
grander and purer and nobler it all becomes; it 
shines with one Beauty; there above in the 
Heavens, and here in the myriad on myriad worlds 
that send it back to its source — Beauty in answer 
to Beauty, golden Life in answer to Life yet more 
golden. 

19 



CAPRICCIOS 

ENID 

They join their hands in the dance, 
Painting and Sculpture and Music; 
Wondrous the pathos and flow, 
Lovely the fate yet to be. 

ELAINE 

Who shall follow the footsteps of Love ? 
We may not fathom his secrets; 
From height unto height he leads, 
From glory to glory he moves. 

ARTHUR 

I know him shrined in my heart. 

In me resounds his sweet singing, 

Lo ! the world shall know him through me. 

Poetry's son and servant of Beauty. 

The Queen kneels beside the Prince. He throws his arm 
about her neck, and lays his cheek against hers. The curtain 
falls. 



20 



CAPRICCIOS 
III. 

Another and grander portal of the castle ; a broad roadway 
leads down to the sea-shore ; on either side vast lawns with 
deepening forests at their edges and outskirts ; along the road- 
way a double concourse of knights in holiday array ; beyond 
them towards the sea-shore a throng of people full of rejoicing ; 
the palace steps are crowded with ladies ; near the portal the 
King and Queen and Merlin ; just below them Morgause le 
Fay, Enid, and Elaine. The harbor shows many ships with 
floating pennons ; sailors are seen running to and fro amid the 
populace. 

CHILDREN {^approaching^ and bearing great bunches 

of roses) 
It is the time of full-orbed flowers; it is the latter 
spring of the year; now the earth and the sky smile 
gladly towards each other; the softly colored seas 
encircle the land with arms of love. 

SECOND GROUP OF CHILDREN {approaching, and bear- 
ing large, white, and perfume-exhaling lilies) 
Never has the sunshine been purer or serener; the 
air and the light vie in clearness one with the other; 
stainlessly the heights of the heavens scale the 
clear ether; bright are the song and the mirth and 
the glow of the world. 

THIRD GROUP OF CHILDREN (approaching, and bear- 
ing long grasses and blossoms, that cling to vines 
whose life is close to the moist and odorous soil ) 

21 



CAPRICCIOS 

The humbler ones shall be exalted; those whose 
heads have been bowed down shall know what it is 
to be bathed in the glory of sunshine; blossoms 
that hide in the depths of the forest shall see the 
full-stretched blueness above them. 

FOURTH GROUP OF CHILDREN {approaching^ and bear- 
ing palm branches and laurel ) 
The victory stands at the gates of life. The song 
peals from far over sea and the waters rejoice to 
hear it; the mountains and deeps of the air send 
forth their gladsome voices ; the sound of the music 
of Time is heard in its splendor at last; all things 
that grow, all life that breathes, all hearts that 
burn, unite in the pure delight, that is the loveliest 
of days, the end for which all hope was, the fire 
that makes everything new.' 

MERLIN 

The marriage of the soul and the world is thus 
brought to pass; from the island washed by the 
lisping waves the bridegroom bringeth her; there 
she dwelt beside her mountain lake, that knew the 
passage of the suns and the flight of the stars; all 
the winds came to her, freighted with messages that 
she fathomed; in the solemn midnights she heard 
what the life-blood of the world murmured as it 
came from the great world-heart ; the Lady of the 

22 



CAPRICCIOS 

Mere weds with the Ruler of Time; the Muses re- 
joice in the bridals; the Light of Song arises above 
the horizon again ; the Poet becomes the monarch 
and master and king. 

THE KNIGHTS 

We have worn our armor and wielded our swords; 
we have stood in the fore-front of the fight; we 
have known the terror and the joy of battle; we 
have heard the mad shouts of onset, and seen the 
flashings of steel like noonday stars across the rush 
of contest; through the crash and the clamor, we 
have heard the notes of the trumpet like a blood- 
red light amid a dance of lesser lights; defeat and 
victory both have we felt; but now we bend before 
a grander conqueror; what we have toiled for ap- 
pears now unto us; the reign of peace and friend- 
ship and loveliness. 

THE LADIES 

Often have we sat beside our casements and seen 
the sun falling behind the glooming skies, and 
bearing away from the quieted waters the long and 
wavering bands of crimson and gold ; we have seen 
the stars silently rising from out the growing dark- 
ness, and watched their serene march around the 
world; strange dreams and longings moved through 

23 



CAPRICCIOS 

the spaces of our souls; we thought of the warriors 
for God and the Right in distant lands; we thought 
of the tumults that engirt our land and threatened 
to break upon its calm; we cleansed our souls and 
made our hearts pure that our lives might be as a 
blessing; we saw the great good that was coming 
like a festal chariot bearing the victor; we heard 
already the music of peace and chaste glory; now 
we await the consummation, the Lady who is the 
light of our seeing, the strength of our strivings, 
the flawless voice of our singing, the secret and 
heart of our musings. 

THE PEOPLE 

We have stood at the foot of the mountain; we 
have seen the cavalcade winding upwards, and 
catching the light while we were in darkness; 
we have heard the flap of the banners from the 
castle roof; we have dwelt in our farmsteads and 
stood by our forges, and have toiled without ceas- 
ing through the hours of the daytime; we have 
eaten our coarse black bread with tears oftentimes, 
and our children have wept at our knees; yet we 
have not fallen into repining, but have fanned 
the flame of hope that burned in our hearts, some- 
times smouldering and covered with ashes, but 
bursting anew with red resplendence; we have 
24 



CAPRICCIOS 

raised our unmailed hand in the unequal fight, and 
have mourned over our many defeats; to-day the 
sun rises anew upon our horizon; the kingdom 
shall be, where each man is king, and each woman 
is queen ; all men shall toil, each after his fashion, 
and all toil shall be good and equal; so shall our 
life grow even and kindly and beneficent; so shall 
the work of the world be done in the spirit of love, 
mighty and royal; so shall all life unite in the 
whole that is Joyance and Beauty. 

THE SAILORS 

Over the waves tender and treacherous, we have 
come; we have no fear of the outland places; 
where the step of the wanderers has never been, we 
shall find new lands for our King's adornment; 
into the remotest recesses we wind our long and 
sure way; we watch for the new stars in the 
heavens; we see the new streams falling in foam- 
wreathed cataract on cataract to the sea; against 
the sunset we see strange tall trees rearing their 
crowns of foliage; we hear the hiss of the jungled 
snake that knows not the newcomers, and we fear 
not; so shall the whole sphere be bound in the 
chains that are freedom, bound with the love that 
is in the eyes of the queen who cometh, fettered 
and mastered and won to the worship which brings 
all space to its altars. 

25 



CAPRICCIOS 

ELAINE 

They come — the Bride and the Bridegroom. 

ENID 

Strew flowers on the path of their coming. 

MORGAUSE LE FAY 

Raise the song and the shout of welcome. 

Arthur and the Lady of the Mere are discovered riding 
slowly to the palace steps. On either side of them ride an 
aged knight and lady, and behind them the flower of the 
realm, young men and women in long array. Arthur bears in 
his hand a sword wreathed with flowers, and the Lady of the 
Mere, whose beauty, shining beneath the masses of golden 
hair, surpasses that of earthly women, carries a tall sceptral 
floM^er, manifold as the greatest of roses, and silver and per- 
fumed as the most sacred of lilies. She is clothed in white 
that flashes back to the sunlight like waters that rejoice in the 
midday radiance. She is coronetted, and her deep blue eyes 
have the mystery and profundity of skies that are untroubled 
of clouds, and watch responsively over the unfathomable quies- 
cent seas. As Arthur and the Lady ride between the golden 
ranks, flowers and palms are cast before them. The shouts of 
welcome encircle them as they pass ; the mighty organ sends 
forth its thunder-peals of rapturous music from the castle ; and 
the harp-song of Merlin, like a vast bird skimming the waters, 
sweeps in large and marvelous loveliness over the luminous and 
heaving expanse of sound. 

CHORUS [from the Castle) 

Welcome her, farmstead, welcome her, street, 

26 



CAPRICCIOS 

Welcome her, sound of martial feet; 
Welcome her, maiden, with morning song, 
Welcome her, great rejoicing throng; 
Star of her island she long has dwelt, 
Joy of her forest she long has felt ; 
There, by the magical marge of her mere, 
She has seen all shapes of the night appear. 
Shapes of the night and shapes of the day. 
Rising along the future's way; 
Wonders and dreams have woven a spell 
Around the green and gold of her dell ; 
And the chief glory has risen to slay 
Monsters of eld that held at bay 
What the long ages have striven for; 
Mistress of all, and servitor 
Of the high splendor that makes its home 
Midmost of God's over-arching dome. 
Bringing the weeds that hope shall wear 
Till it glows forth most noble and fair, 
Spouse of the soul that pours its light 
Over the land, serene and bright, 
All this region of mystery and wonder 
Bids you welcome with joyous thunder, 
Welcomes you, wings of Thought that flies 
Gold-clad forth to its mother-skies! 

MERLIN 

How have I watched and waited for this hour ! 

27 



CAPRICCIOS 

How have I longed to see the sun of this day arise 
most golden in the eastern skies! My labors are 
nearly over, and I may return to the deeps of my 
forest afar in my native land. Welcome, my 
prince, and fairest of women! 

THE KING 

You are to set your hand upon a plough that shall 
break up a ground, wherefrom shall spring blos- 
soms lovelier than any the eyes of Time have yet 
seen. I stood in the front of battle; around me I 
heard the clash of steel, and ringing of onset, and 
the snapping of spears; about me I heard the 
whistle of weapons dividing the air; I knew the 
groans of the dying, and the poignant cries of vic- 
tory. I have prepared for you, O Son, and Lady, 
clothed with the softest of sunlights, the peace and 
calm, which the birth of Beauty is fain of. This 
Kingdom greets you; gird it with gold of your 
patience, and make it a resplendent vision of that 
which must be forever. 

THE QUEEN 

Son, that I felt under the passionate beat of my 
heart, and daughter that my dreams elected there 
far in your green-hued seclusion of forest and 
waters, through you shall pour the love that has 
been my portion in this pageant of living. Mould 

28 



CAPRICCIOS 

it to shapes nobler than those of the blessed afore- 
time ; crown it with garlands fresh from our 
woodlands; make it as if its inmost fancies and 
aspirations stepped forth into light for all men's 
seeing to music — a song down-dropped from the 
secret heavens. 

ARTHUR 

What I am, I give to you, fitted for your endeavors ; 
joyance and suffering, hopes that scale the sun- 
clad mountains, dreams that enclose the world in 
their purpose and passion, lit at the flame of your 
toils and your seeking, all the breath of my life at 
its highest, weave together the end that I know yet 
dimly, but take from your hands to make it a power 
for the healing of Time, and the Truth's resur- 
rection. 

THE LADY OF THE MERE 

As one gazes into a deep crystal set on an altar's 
seclusion, softly ashine from a lamp that burns 
without ceasing, and sees there one by one shapes 
speeding in mystic procession, I have sat in my 
boat in the midst of my lake, when the solemn mid- 
night arose above me, circle on circle of stars and 
fathomless heights beyond them, and watched the 
gracious Fate blending its hues for me in the 

29 



CAPRICCIOS 

rippleless waters, foreknew my husband, limned 
forth in that mirror, divined the large intent that 
makes me its joyous helper and handmaid. I 
come to bring the secret of love to sight, and make 
it blaze like a pulsing star down the path of the 
ages. 

ALL (Knights, Ladies, Populace, Sailors^ 
Closely are you held to our hearts, that give you the 
warmth, the strength of all their motions for your 
behoof and service. 

The Prince and the Lady of the Mere alight, and follow the 
King and Queen into the Castle. The curtain falls to the 
sound of rich and wondrous music. 



IV. 

Several years have elapsed. The King and Queen have 
passed beyond these voices into the peace that holds the spirit 
of all music in its silences. The scene presents the great Hall 
of Audience in the Castle. Arthur enthroned, with the 
Lady of the Mere beside him. Merlin is seated just below the 
throne, and his deep eyes glow with unwonted intensity be- 
neath the shadow of his long and heavy white hair. He seems 
to master the feebleness of body, which comes with great age, 
by a strength of soul, that makes of obstacles as little as a 
great storm wave beating with assistant winds a helpless vessel 
against titanic rocks of a shore, that knows neither pity nor 
relenting. On either side of the dais a concourse of knights 

30 



CAPRICCIOS 

and ladies. The great pillars that support the groined roof 
are wreathed with masses of flowers. The sunlight pours 
through the painted windows. The ceiling, flooded with light, 
shows clearly the outlines of a composition, evidently not yet 
complete, and strangely suggestive, as if now, even this very 
moment, it would burst into full sight, like a great chorus at 
the command of the leader. Before the dais stands a youth, 
flower-crowned and clad in white, holding a lyre in his hand. 
The Lady of the Mere bends listening towards him, her gentle 
face, and gracious eyes, irradiant with a fervor of life, that 
seems able to dower with its own courage and vigor an un- 
ending array of weaker hearts, even as a self-luminous sun 
gives to its many satellites of its unstinting stores and feels 
forever enriched in its copious outpourings. Her voice, brill- 
iant as starshine and full of changing lights and shadows 
like the myriad mystical overtones in a heavenly orchestra, a 
marvelous wealth of reminiscences and prophecies, subdues to 
itself the fire and color and passion of the great pageant. 

THE LADY OF THE MERE 

Without is the sweet, early burst of the spring- 
time, 
Deeper and greener the grasses uprise; 
The tremulous flowers peep out of their coverts, 
And placid as glass lies the blue of the sea. 
Faintly the warm winds are playing and gladdening, 
The pallid new buds are scaling the branches 
Where birds, silver-throated, sing songs of return. 
Now that the winter is dead and the wailing, 
We, too, would kindle our souls at the flame, — 

31 



CAPRICCIOS 

Hearth -flame that burns in the midst of the spirit, — 
Whence our rapt lives take passion and purpose, 
Fire of gladness and splendor of joy. 
What do you bring us of offering due, 
Radiant youth, as fair as the dawn that flushes 
All the pure sky over mountainous steeps. 
When the young year dances down to the valleys 
From the dim heights where her footfall begins, 
Whence the last snow fleets in gold-netted runlets. 
And the first colors of life and delight 
Follow that dancing wherever it leads ? 

THE YOUTH 

A pageant behold that tells the story 
Of your height of giving and wonder. 
Which have brought to our kingdom of marvels 
All that we sought and now have attained. 
Arthur, our King, our helper and leader. 
Girt in the garments of your fair fashioning, 
Shows forth the mystic and mingled glory 
Which takes from you its golden completeness. 
Lo! the light that the ages have longed for, 
Lo! the joy that the weary years have called for, 
Lo! the Beauty that is Time's best miracle. 
Flower, uniting the glow and fire of all passion, 
Noble beyond all thought that we had of its 
brightness, 

32 



CAPRICCIOS 

Shines the center and heart of your rule. 
So I bear at this birth of the springtime 
A semblance pale of that high achievement; 
Bid me raise my song of enchantment, 
Drawing the veil from our golden pageant. 

ARTHUR 

Sing the song which we hear with gladness. 

THE YOUTH {striking the lyre as he speaks^ 
Rise from your primeval mists, 
Songs whereto the rapt heart lists; 
Burst the shadows where you dwell, 
Shapes that answer to my spell; 
Weave the mystic, golden dance 
On your floor of dream and trance; 
What has wrought within us still, 
What has nerved our secret will. 
What has been the World's Desire, 
Mixed of Earth's and Spirit's Fire, 
Deepening Light and truer Glory, 
Ever surer, tenderer story. 
With the art which is your dower, 
Show in all its wondrous power. 
Rise upon our gladdening sight 
Dreams that are the Light of Light, 
And the secret of the Night ! 



CAPRICCIOS 

As he speaks, he passes forward through the press of 
knights and ladies, who divide before him. He pauses, and 
a luminous mist seems to arise at his bidding. He enters it 
and disappears. Gradually the mist vanishes, and there is 
seen a vast plain with huge stones arranged in a circle at its 
center. The arrangement consists, at more or less regular 
intervals, of two tall stones with a horizontal one above them. 
Inside the circle the stones are scattered over the space. The 
plain is bounded by dense forests. The early gray of the 
morning is in the sky. Suddenly from the forests v/ith wild 
cries a horde of men and women, clad in skins, and wearing 
strange ornaments on their heads and arms, sweep forward, 
and engage in a savage and uncouth dance. A woman of 
middle age, and with a mien of weird and fierce dignity, at 
length emerges from the whirl, and raises both hands to the 
sky. They gather around her in a restless group, and a man, 
younger than she, his head crowned with a fantastic garland 
of leaves, approaches her. About him assembles a body of old 
men, in long dark robes, and with white beards matching their 
masses of wild gray hair crowning their heads. 

THE PROPHETESS 

Here is the plain and now is the hour; 
The sun will rise late upon this day; 
The work must be far forth to greet him ; 
Golden must he shine over the mid-altar. 

THE CHIEF 

Long upon the work have we pondered; 

We have watched the stars in their pallid courses; 

34 



CAPRICCIOS 

We have seen the moon poise above the plain; 
Now we are come to complete the great temple. 

THE PROPHETESS {as she raises her voice^ the tribe 

gather around her) 
Forth unto the labor before the sunrise, 
Take ye the massive rocks and arrange them, 
Place them around the mighty altar, 
Finish the strange and mystic circle. 

She makes an imperious gesture, and all, both men and 
women, fall to the task. They sweep into the circle, take up 
the larger rocks, and form a high and rugged altar in the 
center ; they then rapidly place the remaining stones about it 
in several rounds of single upright ones ; fronting the north- 
east they make a rude gateway. The first yellow and red 
glow of the sunrise shows in the heavens. 

THE CHIEF 

We have fulfilled the high commandments. 
Long have we waited for this hour; 
We paused in many dank, deep forests 
On the rude waters' farther side; 
We wandered under changing stars, 
The prophets still sat moody and silent; 
Then did we come to the lone island, 
Then the great voice fell from the heavens. 
Bidding us find the plain appointed; 
Here has the work been done and finished, 

35 



CAPRICCIOS 

This is the place and the hour we sought for ; 
Yet do we need the man and victim. 

ALL 

Yet do we need the man and victim. 

THE PROPHETESS 

Forests wherein the unpierced darkness 
Tells through the night and the green daytime 
Secrets that come from the abysses, 
Skies wherethrough the lights move ever, 
Suns that are masters, kings, and rulers. 
Make now complete our rugged temple, 
Send us at once the man and victim. 

ALL 

Send us at once the man and victim. 

THE CHIEF 

Lo! I come prepared to suffer. 

THE PROPHETESS 

Not yet, O shepherd of the people; 

Who takes this deed in strength upon him ? 

She gazes fiercely around upon the tribe. A terrible silence 
falls over them ; the sunrise begins to glow in the eastern 
skies. Suddenly a strange sweet chant is heard. They turn, 
and the youth with the lyre, beautiful as the morning, emerges 
from the woods and comes quickly towards them. 

36 



CAPRICCIOS . 

THE YOUTH 

I am the sight within your seeing, 
I am the breath within your being; 
With the sun, lo! I appear, 
Crowning the search of many a year; 
Long has Beauty thrilled and sought you, 
Know the Deed her joy has wrought you! 

They open before him. He leaps upon the great altar. 
They surround it, uttering wild cries, and making strange 
gestures. The prophetess and the chief fall upon their knees. 
The sun, now fully arisen, appears behind him, as a great 
sphere of fire, and he stands in the very center of the over- 
powering radiance. 

THE PROPHETESS 

O desire of the lengthened weary years! 

THE CHIEF 

O wondrous end and attainment! 

ALL 

We dare not slay you, O pure Splendor. 

THE YOUTH 

Life, not Death, is Beauty's meaning; 
From Heaven's ramparts God is leaning; 
Rest and be content with knowing 
What fair fruits come of my sowing; 

37 



CAPRICCIOS 

Noble though the pile, yet blander 
Works the days shall bring, and grander. 

In the vast sweep of the sunlight, the assemblage of stones 
with the youth at its heart assumes a new symmetry and glory. 
The tribe are amazed at its loveliness. The light becomes a 
very blaze, and the youth vanishes in it, the music of his chant 
being heard after he is no longer seen. The prayers and cries 
of the tribe continue ; the mist again arises, and the whole 
scene is gathered back into it. 

A VOICE 

Like a yellow windswept fire 

Higher leaps the strong desire; 

Filled with a divine unrest 

Heaves the world's impetuous breast; 

Clearer glow the dream and thought 

Into nobler semblance wrought; 

By the midland deep blue sea 

Shines a purer ecstasy; 

Under warmer, calmer skies 

Nobler shapes of glory rise. 

The mist disappears ; a reach of sea, slender- rippled as if 
touched by a light wind, and reflecting a stainless ether. The 
low hills, olive-crowned, arise on either side of the land- 
locked bay. The harbor is filled with a busy multitude at 
various tasks. A large and stately galley has just arrived. 
The master of the vessel is at point of coming ashore and has 
with him a body of sailors. The people gather about him and 

38 



CAPRICCIOS 

greet him with eagerness. The Priest of Apollo emerges from 
the crowd and speaks to him. 

PRIEST OF APOLLO 

Welcome, O mariner, come from the far town 

whence we 
Sailed in the days not yet lost in the dim sweet 

past. 
Always our hearts reach back to the land of our 

birth, 
And we behold again the long and statued street, 
The gentle vine-clad hills and the white temple's 

star 
Shining, miraculous flame, back to the sun's fierce 

fire 
All the unclouded day from the sea-gazing height. 

THE SHIPMAN 

Smooth have the waters been, and fair the winds 

have blown. 
And Artemis given her light through the reign of 

the dark. 
Not a swift child of Ocean but has breathed a 

spell 
Of azure calm about our ship's light-cleaving path. 

PRIEST OF APOLLO 

What of the burden you went forth to bring to us ? 

39 



CAPRICCIOS 

THE SHIPMAN . 

Fair shone the sun, and glad and eager they were 

come 
Down to the vessel's side, when we drew near the 

quay. 
Into the roomy town we were led with clear song, 
And there we sat at feast while the day sped away. 
Through the large-starred night we heard the tales 

of eld. 
And sleep came late to eyes that joyed in sights of 

home. 
When the gold morning rose, we set forth to the 

shore, 
And there the gift was placed, pure in the rosy 

light. 

PRIEST OF APOLLO 

Take it up now with care, and bear unto the house 
Where it will stand, protecting life of all the land, 
A gift most high from those who ever love us well. 

The sailors pass back into the ship and bring forth the 
statue. They step lightly with their burden, and led by 
the priest, move toward the town. The mist again covers the 
scene ; when it is cloven apart, there comes into view the in- 
terior of a noble temple ; the statue of Apollo, serene and 
beneficent, shines from its pedestal ; the priest and his assist- 
ants stand before it ; the temple is thronged with worshippers. 

40 



CAPRICCIOS 

PRIEST OF APOLLO 

Lord of the silver bow, 

Master of joy and light, 

Slaying with arrows keen 

Shapes that haunt the night, 

Grant us your life to know. 

Make all our hearts serene 

With the pure dreams that flit 

Through your great soul enlivening it. 

Mould us fair to your might, 

Lay your hand on the land, 

Send your effluence bright 

In a golden rain and bland, 

So that your eyes, when they fall 

On harbor or street or hill, 

Shall see the glow of your will 

In shapes that allure and thrall. 

Make us the child of your love, 

Lead us to be your thought, 

Pure as yourself above 

Be your image bodied and wrought. 

As in the days of eld 

Your strength the Python slew, 

And horror no longer held 

The fields most sweet to view. 

Drive from our homes and us 

All that is not amorous 



41 



CAPRICCIOS 

Of the noble life that pours 

From you through our happy shores, 

So that here complete 

Your worship and love shall be, 

And glad the dance of your feet 

Beside our summer sea. 

The mist again hides everything from the view ; it fades, and 
one sees a vi^ide street with superb palaces on either hand ; the 
houses are gaily decorated, and the balconies and windows are 
filled with gazers ; the street also is lined with spectators 
eagerly waiting for the procession. 

A YOUNG MAN 

I seem to feel them coming; hark! the shouts; 
They cannot now be far away. 

A WOMAN 

You dream; 
These noises are made here by standers near. 

A BOY {from the middle of the street^ 

There, I can see them; now they come, they come! 

AN OLD MAN 

It is a grand and festal day; the sky 
Seems to rejoice with us, and well it may; 
What can be juster than to leave our toils, 
Our little cares, and pay our homage due 
To the great artist who now makes his home 
Within our city ? 

42 



CAPRICCIOS 

A WOMAN 

Just indeed it is; 
To love the high, the nobly beautiful, 
Makes us akin to them; and so our lords 
Grant us this day to see his latest work, 
And let him feel how much we honor him. 

The procession appears ; it is composed of the city's gov- 
ernors, young members of the nobility, representatives of the 
various trades and guilds, the artists of all kinds at the last. 
Amid them is borne a great picture showing the mother with 
the child, and beside it passes the painter, with head uncov- 
ered, and receiving the unstinted homage of his fellow-citizens. 
He is richly garbed in the costume of the time, but his face is 
that of the youth, who has appeared in the preceding scenes. 
During the shouts the cloud again covers all from the sight. 

A VOICE 

Age after age my labors shine, 

Wrought into marvels subtly fine; 

In varied ways is the story told, 

In purest white or ruddy gold ; 

Yet such its depth and lustrous charm, 

Its exorcism of every harm. 

Its revelations of glories new, 

Fruitions not yet brought to view. 

That still your inmost hearts must yearn 

The further beauty to discern. 

43 



CAPRICCIOS 

The shifting curtain slowly begins to stir and lift, veil by 
veil. The vista disclosed seems illimitable. Once more the 
light-gladdened sea, and the gracious hills. On terrace after 
terrace overlooking the waters, amid their gardens, are seen 
white palaces ; along the middle plain stretches of lofty trees, 
under which are noble dwellings ; in the center a green level 
with a great group of statuary ; the sea is full of fair-shaped 
craft flying a multiplicity of pennons; through openings in 
the hills the roads give glimpses into a land smiling and 
making perpetual holiday. The white-robed chorus surrounds 
the youth ; they are clad in loose-falling draperies. The 
swell and harmony of an unseen orchestra is heard all about 
them. 

THE YOUTH 

Joy! Joy! 

Whithersoever we turn, 

The golden raptures burn ; 

The regions of the air 

One passioned message bear, 

Light, Joyance, Splendor everywhere. 

THE CHORUS 

Love has made his home on earth; 
Beauty everywhere has birth; 
Poetry close wed to song 
Tells what joys to all belong. 

THE YOUTH 

Bind them in a flower-knit chain, 
44 



CAPRICCIOS 

Bid each bring to all the gain, 
Hero in his marble dress, 
Painting's myriad blessedness, 
Temple crowning every hill, 
Words whose pauses ever fill 
Music's mystic trance and thrill, 
Make them all display to man 
Nobly as they only can 
What his truest life must be. 
Worship, Freedom, Ecstasy. 

A VOICE 

In the many rippled flow 
Of my magic you shall know 
What the deepmost heart of things 
To itself forever sings ; 
In the ages past and gone 
Splendors led the nations on; 
Sovereign of the latter years. 
Music its fair towers uprears; 
Deeps unfathomed, realms untrod. 
Visions of the mighty God, 
Passion's sweep and Love's unrest. 
Search for what is pure and best. 
Blisses dimly felt before. 
Dreams the spirit must adore. 
Rise and glow and strangely gleam 



45 



CAPRICCIOS 

In my ever-moving stream; 
Sovereign of these latter years, 
Music its fair towers uprears. 



ANOTHER VOICE 

Each is king who serves the rest, 
He who loves most is the best; 
Clearly glows the wondrous truth 
In my golden changeless youth; 
Long ago the chant arose 
Of man's joys and fleeting woes; 
Temples grew at my just beck; 
Sculptures shone my house to deck; 
Painting gave herself to me, 
Helper of high Poetry; 
Music lends her sunbright trance 
My achievement to advance; 
Every thought embathed in me 
Gains a surer empery; 
Now all life is seen at last 
Woven of my gracious past; 
Now all life is seen to win 
What my soul has ever been; 
Lady of the forest mere, 
Arthur whom we reverence here, 
Lo! ye are what all must be, 
Heaven-illumined Poetry. 
46 



CAPRICCIOS . 

THE CHORUS 

Let the music rise and fall 
Into joyance over all; 
Bring the message round, complete, 
Into every home and street. 
Know the might of love supreme. 
Source of every changing dream, 
Who has brought you where you may 
Dwell within his golden day. 

The scene like the others is covered with the white cloud ; 
the music, however, continues. 

ARTHUR 

Forth now into the wildwood ; there to think 
And dream upon what here was told to us; 
Come, O my queen, I fain would clearly hear 
What now I see down in your deepened eyes, 

Arthur and the Lady of the Mere descend from the thrones ; 
they pass, followed by the courtiers ; the music does not cease 
until the curtain falls. 



47 



CAPRICCIOS 
V. 

It is a night of cloud ; the moon is seen intermittently 
emerging from the dense black vapors ; occasionally a star 
flickers faintly and feebly. The wide sea is slightly roughened 
by the wind ; it is at intervals silvered by the moon's appear- 
ances. Near the shore is erected a bier ; on which, covered by 
a heavy pall, lies the body of Arthur. The high and serene 
face is noble ; at one side stands Merlin, bent and weary ; 
opposite him in black draperies, Elaine, Enid, and Morgause 
le Fay ; in front, looking seawards, the Lady of the Mere, 
Torch-bearers surround the bier and the personages. 

THE LADY OF THE MERE 

Do I not hear a distant singing on the waters ? 
As I strain my gaze, I seem to see the great barge 
coming toward us. 

MERLIN 

It cannot now be long. Midnight holds the 
heavens, and before the morning shows its gray 
light above the waves, he must be far on his way. 

THE LADY OF THE MERE 

I too must then return to my lone island, and my 
lake, gleaming beneath my mountains. The cycle 
of this toil is past and done. 

ELAINE 

Another round in the great ladder has been 
climbed; another outlook has been gained; all 

48 



CAPRICCIOS 

men have seen the world in a more gracious light, 
and heard the cadence of a finer song. 

ENID 

Arthur, our king, lies here asleep; the dream of 
his great life has come to light in many ways of 
blessedness. Now he shall know the happiness 
of rest and calm. 

MORGAUSE LE FAY 

Great is the delight of noble work done with glad 

help of our strong fellow-men. 

Great is the delight of seeing noble ends achieved 

and wrought; but sleep has also balm for weary 

eyes. 

THE LADY OF THE MERE 

Surely I hear aright ; the faint song quivers down 
the silvering sea; the light grows brighter in the 
stormy heavens; or does my heart mock me with 
fancies shimmering before deceived eyes ? 

MERLIN 

Nay, you have seen and heard; I also feel the 
plash of the dark waters, and I too shall fare forth 
to the vale of rest. The winds are breathing 
more deeply, and the sail is rounded towards us. 

49 



CAPRICCIOS 

A low and mystic chant is borne towards them across the 
waters. The sound of dividing waves is dimly heard, and afar 
off a dusky sail comes into view. 

THE LADY OF THE MERE 

What have your hand and heart not wrought, great 
soul, for whom the distant heavens are opening? 
There the life, that has burned down into its socket 
here, will spring anew, awakened by the winds of 
a divinest spring. Your eyes will turn unto a 
clearer scene, and stronger currents flow from your 
strong heart, restored and whole from many wounds 
and pangs. 

ELAINE 

Who knows not suffering, knows not song. 

ENID 

Who feels not woe, can raise no silver chant. 

MORGAUSE LE FAY 

The fiery soul, feeling the stream of life fleeting 
adown its veins, touches grief with its own pure 
might, and builds a dream of bliss even from stress 
and agony. The house of life is filled with songs 
of reconciling cheer. 

The chant upon the waters becomes ever distincter, and the 
barge with its dark sails is clearly before them. In it already 
appear three crowned figures, stoled in black, and with faces 
turned towards the shore. 

50 



CAPRICCIOS 

MERLIN 

We fare forth together, O my King; ever have I 
been beside you, as a vassal obedient to your will; 
my hand has done for you what it had might to do, 
and what you craved of it; my thought has told 
its tale into your ear for your acceptance; they 
have called me wise, but what great skill of fathom- 
ing mysteries had I save that your eyes gazed 
through my strengthened ones ? 

THE LADY OF THE MERE 

I laid my hand in yours, O King; I brought you 
furtherance from my island home; I had caught 
glimpses of the sea, and far-off shinings of the stars, 
and palest echoes from the deepest woods, and 
bird-cries answering to the early sun, that they 
might be clear threads within the web you spun; 
so shall I still be mixed with you, and in your 
work my slender help will front the newer hours. 

ELAINE 

Farewell, sweet master and good lord. 

ENID 

How long until your dear head shall return ? 

MORGAUSE LE FAY 

The morrow's sun will look upon a barren land. 

51 



CAPRICCIOS 

The Lady of the Mere walks slowly to the shore. The 
black barge comes now to rest. The song rises against the 
heavens, clear and thrilling. The light in the sky is soft and 
pervasive. The singing gradually fades away. 

MERLIN 

Lift the body gently and bear it hither. 

The attendants take the body tenderly from the bier and 
carry it to the barge. The three queens receive it and then 
make room for Merlin, who ascends the boat, and stands 
beside it. 

THE LADY OF THE MERE 

Already the slumberous calm that pervades my 
island takes hold of me. O Arthur, husband and 
king, I gave you what I had, and now I give you 
back unto the mystery from whence you sprung. 
Healing will come, and strength, and desire, and, 
at your voice, which cleaves all space, I will again 
live for you, even as your larger hopes shall require. 

MERLIN 

He is not dead ; how vainly men deem of death ! 
He has gone forth into the very winds, and not a 
pulse but bears him in fluttering strength; the 
night through all her stars and clouds feels him at 
heart; the busy streets know his clear voice re- 
sounding through their toils; and every dream that 
climbs the unsealed heavens has him within it; still 

52 



CAPRICCIOS 

he passes; but the years that are as yet unclamor- 
ous for the breaking of their prison will know the 
spell that shatters his sleep, and he will rise again. 
So I fare forth with him. I have wrought through 
the weary day, and I would fain have calm with 
him, which will be granted me, I know, upon that 
shore which now awaits us both. And you see that 
you falter not, but labor while the clear hours hold, 
and make the garden fresh with the remembered 
flowers. Then, at the close, you too shall find us in 
our distant vale, and on you shall his eyes shine 
anew. And now, O Lady of the Mere, fare forth, 
and be all ready for his hand and kiss, when you 
shall hold him to your heart once more. 

The singing again severs the air. The watchers on the 
shore see the boat growing more and more a speck in the dis- 
tance, and hear the singing more and more as a faint thread 
of sound falling from the horizon. At last a soft glow appears 
very far off ; they seem to behold Arthur standing erect in the 
boat and turning a benignant brow upon them. Then all is 
dark and silent. 

THE LADY OF THE MERE 

This day is over. 

MORGAUSE LE FAY 

Nay, its labors now become more tense and strong. 

53 



CAPRICCIOS 

THE LADY OF THE MERE 

We toil for the newer and the nobler one. 
The curtain falls. 



54 



ON THE MOUNTAIN TOP 

FAUST 

MEPHISTOPHELES 
RAPHAEL 



55 



The scene presents the rugged and barren summit of a 
mountain in the gray light of the early morning. Below, the 
heavy mists slowly move, as with an inner impulse, like awak- 
ening thoughts in a mind that has been dulled by an overcoming 
shock. Beyond, toward the eastern horizon, a lake lies cold 
and steely-dusk under the unlit skies. To the west, a mountain 
pass, and through it glimpses of a wide-stretching upland 
emerald with grass and fair-shaped trees in the semi-light 
overhanging all. Rounding a sharp curve of rock, and climb- 
ing the precipitous ascent, Faust and Mephistopheles come into 
view, the former wearied and without interest, the latter gay 
with the mocking triumph that feeds upon the discomfiture of 
his victim. 

FAUST 

What new and senseless prank is this that you are 
playing now ? What have I to do with all this 
childishness on the barren summit, where what I see 
I care not for at all ? 

MEPHISTOPHELES 

When will you let yourself be indeed freed from 
the last of illusions ? You yet so cling to the life 
in which you were bred, to the narrow scruples 
into which you were born, to the barren dreams 

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CAPRICCIOS 

which seem to you so real, that my task appears an 
endless one. You are hardly an apt learner, and I 
despair of you, my dear professor, with your vain 
imaginings about the truth, and the marvelous 
things which you believe that you know. 

FAUST 

You will not get very far with these railings, and 
these hints about an understanding which you arro- 
gate to yourself. The devil, doubtless, has a char- 
acter altogether his own, and not to be mistaken for 
any other, but knowledge and penetration are not 
qualities to which he can make a rightful claim. 
In a world of illusions, some of which have a per- 
sistency that sets them apart in an almost undeniable 
fixity, the worst of illusions must be that the denier 
of all things and thoughts can fail at last to be the 
denier of himself. 

MEPHISTOPHELES 

You argue finely, my dear professor; you really 
know your lesson admirably; you have it altogether 
at your tongue's end; how sharp an effect the nip- 
ping morning air has upon your discursive faculty! 

FAUST 

The outlook is indeed imperial, not the less so be- 
cause of the sober gray that is the predominant 

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CAPRICCIOS 

color. The world of mists heaves and billows, as 
though in the throes of giving birth to undreamed- 
of wonders. Marvelous is it all; I seem to feel 
the weariness of these latter days falling from me, 
and the charmed joy of youth slowly flames up 
again in my soul. 

MEPHISTOPHELES 

For all this you should be grateful to me ; how long 
will it be before you estimate me aright ? 

FAUST 

Be sure that I knov/ well how to thank you. Begin 
your magic and your mummeries ; what do you want 
with me on this high vantage-ground ? have a care, 
or here I shall certainly escape you; this loveliness 
inveighs bitterly against your sinister mockeries. 

MEPHISTOPHELES 

Nay, I must have a little time; I am somewhat 
weary and out of breath ; this lame member of mine 
finds climbing less easy than the straight limbs 
that the witch's draught dowered you withal; but 
the hour has arrived, and, if you will gaze yonder 
and downward, you will see along the road leading 
into the mountain meadow, where the mists sepa- 
rate and then close, some startling wonders. 

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CAPRICCIOS 

FAUST 

Wonders, indeed! births of the sunrise and the 
morning! What a strange mocker of your own 
mockeries you are! how fast you undo the very 
things you would rivet most firmly ! Now at last I 
feel the breath of an enchantment coming over the 
barren grayness of my thought. Life bursts forth 
once more within me ; the old flowers bloom in the 
meadows, the old winds blow through the new- 
leaved trees, the old songs float through the revivi- 
fied atmosphere; the chains with which you have 
tried to bind me, of your own maladroitness, fall 
from me, and, on the mountain top to which you 
have led me, I find my freedom again! 

While he speaks, a strange white glory seems to fill the sky 
above them ; it silvers the broad expanse through and through ; 
gradually, however, it condenses and floats downward towards 
them ; Faust responds to its splendor with looks of incredulous 
joyance, as though within him were movements that he hardly 
understood, and little knew how to appreciate ; the miracle of 
light at length is poised on a rocky prominence just over him, 
and the face and form of the angel Raphael are now visible ; 
the figure is clad in silver mail, and the face is gentle and 
heroic. 

FAUST 

What marvel is this ? Who are you ? And whence 
do you come ? 
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CAPRICCIOS 

RAPHAEL 

I am here inasmuch as you have called me. 

FAUST 

Spirits, it appears, speak always in riddles; I have 
called no one. {^Turning to Mep hi stop heles.^ Per- 
haps your keen wit will be able to explain to me. 

Mephistopheles looks white and old ; the wrinkles in his 
face are more noticeable, and he shakes violently, in spite of 
an evident effort to suppress his emotion. 

MEPHISTOPHELES 

It is you who indulge in mysteries; I do not even 
know what you mean ; is there some vision floating 
before your unaccountable gaze ? I see only rocks, 
and the road beneath, and the vanishing mists. 

FAUST 

Behold, there, on that crag, the mail-clad man, who 
has descended from the very heavens in the midst 
of luminous clouds. 

RAPHAEL 

He both sees me well and knows me well; why 
continue in this foolish attempt, which will lead to 
nothing ? 

MEPHISTOPHELES 

Really, now, I do behold you, and remember you; 

6i 



CAPRICCIOS 

we have met before at the Court of the Old One; 
but what are you doing here ? This mountain is 
not as firm as your feet should press, and per- 
chance it may melt away and precipitate us all to 
the bottom ; even you might suffer some dislocation 
in that catastrophe. 

While he is speaking, the rocks on which they are standing 
float into an apparent dissolution ; the whole scene wavers with 
an impending change, which reveals antecedents that were as- 
suredly causative agencies in its production, and, more vaguely, 
realizations that are the stages of a necessary and brilliant 
development. The whole is like the movement of thoughts 
that contain the images and explanations of some great event 
in the historic process of the world. Raphael is serene and 
glorious ; Mephistopheles stoops like one who is bent above a 
great and serious toil ; a glow of enlightenment shines in the 
eyes of Faust. In a few moments the transfiguration is over, 
and the scene is as it was before. 

MEPHISTOPHELES 

Are you convinced at last ? 

FAUST 

Convinced ? 

MEPHISTOPHELES 

Nay, my dear professor, your slowness of appre- 
hension this morning makes the task which I 
have set for myself strangely difficult and pro- 
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CAPRICCIOS 

longed. We may, perhaps, leave this show, which I 
had conjured up for you, until another and more 
favorable opportunity. 

RAPHAEL 

Look; yonder at the mountain's base. 

MEPHISTOPHELES 

Well, then, be it so; you shall bring on the con- 
summation, which I had supposed still to be de- 
layed; probably, the time is riper than I deemed, 
and the final clearing up of our good friend's diffi- 
culties is at hand. 

RAPHAEL 

Your efforts are deserving of the success of which 
somehow they persistently fail; your courage con- 
tinues unabated, although you find yourself, so 
often, and in such strange ways, baffled in your 
attempts ; we may as well proceed. 

MEPHISTOPHELES 

It shall be as you wish. 

FAUST 

Courtesy becomes you admirably. 

MEPHISTOPHELES 

Nay, no further raillery; look downward; the 

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CAPRICCIOS 

mists have vanished, and the road upward to the 
meadow lies full in view. 

FAUST 

I seem to sink backward as into an unfathomable 
abyss ; it is as though my being receded into some 
form of its mutable nature that has long been over- 
lived; although upon this height, I yet grow part of 
a strange earlier life; and now I stand upon that 
often trodden road ; you too are there, angel of the 
serene brow and lifted hand; and, in the very heart 
of the mad carnival, Mephisto stands and whirls 
and gloats upon the fury and the rage. 

MEPHISTOPHELES 

I am indeed to be found in every time, somewhat 
more myself in those earlier days; here latterly I 
have been conclusively proven to be sheer nothing- 
ness, and I linger shadowlike in some extremely 
sceptical heads; and yet I am the spirit who deny, 
and evermore deny myself. 

FAUST 

My head swims with the madness that I see every- 
where around me; who are those beasts storming 
through the clear landscape, and darkening the 
very skies above them with their savage rites and 
cries ? They walk erect, and utter uncouth sounds, 

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CAPRICCIOS 

that are not yet the speech of men; fiercer than 
wolves or tigers hungering in their lairs, and yet 
arisen above the dull obedience to the forests and 
seasons; I know you not; lay not your hands upon 
me; these am not I, although they claim kinship, 
and mock me with the claim. 

MEPHISTOPHELES 

You are finding out the real heart that beats behind 
the life which has been since time began ; like gives 
birth to like and unto like returns; the pageant 
will change, and a certain worthy wisdom will give 
a surface smoother to the glow of the summer sun- 
shine; but the heart remains the same; rapine, in- 
jury, self-seeking, hatred, death, reside at the 
centre, and at one time showed themselves forth 
just as they are; let us not hide the truth from our- 
selves; we would not be deceived; moreover, it 
may be that it is all only a very bad dream. 

RAPHAEL 

Ages on ages have gone ; over the mighty road races 
on races have passed; suns and stars and planets 
have been born and culminated and vanished; so 
old is time that thought alone is older; who shall 
revive the storms and battles and rages of the de- 
parted eras ? The heart shudders at the retrospect, 
and shrinks away from the direful contemplation. 

6s 



CAPRICCIOS 

MEPHISTOPHELES 

Yet better is the unconcealed and shameless 
wickedness than the cloaked hatreds and hidden 
bestialities of the subsequent and civil generations. 

FAUST 

The horror has been overlived, and a glen in the 
rocky roadway far nearer the shimmering meadow 
surrounds me with marvelous peace and tender 
serenity. The pastoral landscape sweeps toward 
the gentle hillside, and the narrow mountain stream 
rolls clear as glass downward to the flashing lake. 
On the rocky promontory the fair temple fronts 
the sun, and the great goddess stands, tall and 
white and pure, on her sculptured pedestal. The 
procession winds up the steep side and pauses at 
the temple gates; it is the very joyance of youthful 
perfect life. 

RAPHAEL 

The heart of the world displays its inner workings 
more clearly in this gay and luminous pageantry. 
The sure appanage of the soul is joyance, and the 
atmosphere in which it really dwells is youth. 

MEPHISTOPHELES 

Let him look deeper ; the surface is, indeed, bril- 
liant enough; but these shows and pranks and pro- 



CAPRICCIOS 

cessions perchance are but the externals of a life 
that is not wholly as wonderful as it appears. What 
do you find now, my wise friend and learned pro- 
fessor, now when your gaze is closer and sharper ? 

FAUST 

Out there in the fields, I see a coarse and rough 
peasantry, who are fastened to the soil, and whose 
slavish subjection makes them like unto it in their 
uncouthness. In the city also everywhere the ab- 
ject and soulless slave sits at his cheerless tasks, and 
raises his sullen eyes toward the blue skies, that 
answer him in no wise at all. In the council are 
the elders who plot war upon war. Nay, bid me not 
speak further, the life is rotten at the core, un- 
speakable, shameless, base beyond all words, and 
horrible. 

RAPHAEL 

Do you abandon hope ? 

MEPHISTOPHELES 

It is now my turn; revolve, O marvelous wheel, 
bring forth your next and most appalling wonder. 

FAUST 

Nay, I would not go further, if your will is mine. 

67 



CAPRICCIOS 

MEPHISTOPHELES 

Do not faint now; you are somewhat white, my 
dear friend, at the prospect, but the end will be 
more reassuring, — dreams, nothing but dreams. 

FAUST 

That sterner widening of the road, rock-circled 
and less charmed by changeless skies, receives the 
swarming hordes. The rugged bodies glow white 
in the steely light of their soberer day. The father 
rules his household and his sons; the matron sits 
beside her wheel and spins her lengthening thread; 
the tillage yellows in the sunshine. The majestic 
city grows and grows beside the river; it is the 
pride of life to know her sacred laws and to be 
recognized as one of her mighty sons; mail-clad 
and plumed the armies march from her glorious 
gates; the seas and farthest lands bring tribute; 
the wanton, wandering tribes bow under the yoke, 
and know how noble a thing is obedience; mistress 
and queen of centuries and wide-spreading lands, 
who would fail to give you thanks and allegiance 
and worship ? 

RAPHAEL 

Girt with beauty is the shield the warrior bears; 
generous the strength with which he marches to 
conquest; noble is the toil that gives man unto 

6S 



CAPRICCIOS 

himself; the deeper-eyed manhood is more than the 
grace and sweetness and splendor of youth. 

MEPHISTOPHELES 

Yet what is that shape you see on yonder golden 
roof, singing unto the skies, and looking toward 
your city ? 

FAUST 

Did I not find you here so close at my side, I 
should say it was you, O tender Mephisto; the 
chilly stare of those eyes was lighted at the frozen 
fires of yours, and the curl of those unfeeling lips 
derived its bitterness from the unfathomed disdain 
that resides in your smileless and harsh ones. 

MEPHISTOPHELES 

Indulge not, sweet friend, in these strange compli- 
ments; they fit not the place and the hour; reserve 
them for the vine-clad arbor and the clinking of 
responsive glasses. 

RAPHAEL 

Perchance his seeing is not far from the truth. 

FAUST 

The old horror comes again ; over the whole groan- 
ing earth the conflict spreads ; there, in the golden 

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CAPRICCIOS 

and fruitful orient, the fields are splashed with 
blood; the smooth midland seas re-echo to the 
combat; brother's hand is raised against brother's; 
what a mockery is all this boasted splendor, this 
mighty polity, this vaunted citizenship ? Nay, to 
be a member of this harsh commonwealth is to be a 
bawd and a murderer; to be an emperor is to be 
the vile companion of slaves and the ministrant of 
untold vices; to be a warrior is to be the tool of 
savagery past conception or comparison. So the 
fabric totters, and burns, and flames, and falls; 
the fires therefrom shine across the western seas; 
the dust of that downfall hides the very sun ; march 
over the wreck, O strong barbarians, bring with 
you the strength and the breath of your unfathomed 
woods. 

RAPHAEL 

Find you no heart of goodness in that seething 
whirl ? 

MEPHISTOPHELES 

Behold I cast my shadow over that sea of nation- 
wrecking storm. 

FAUST 

I know you everywhere. 
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CAPRICCIOS 

RAPHAEL 

Look closer, deeper, surer. 

FAUST 

I hear strange hymns arising from strange caverns; 
they have a sound not heard before upon the earth; 
their silver music strikes against the very stars; 
they sing a manhood which must be the very heart 
and soul of every man ; they sing a love which must 
be the chief of powers; they sing a truth which 
must reform all life until all life becomes a form of 
truth; the band is small, the torch burns feebly, 
but the fire flies far, and now like myriad sparkles 
on a summer sea the glory glitters from uncounted 
places, the weak become the conquerors, the World 
is overcome, vicisti Galilcee I 

MEPHISTOPHELES 

Ha! ha! ha! I feel the horns growing on my 
forehead, these shapely feet shrink into hoofs, and 
a long tail sprouts from my rearmost parts ! 

FAUST 

You seem indeed a relic of the monkeydom, that, 
according to our latest evangels, once held the 
earth. 

RAPHAEL 

Nay, do not allow him to lead you away into sad 

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CAPRICCIOS 

and misjudging jests. The vision yet unrolls itself ; 
what now appears to you ? 

FAUST 

Upon the height, where the clear waters gurgle 
from the hillside, and the trees grow thick and 
dusky-green, the solemn cathedral fronts the 
yellowing sun. The intricacy of pinnacles makes 
its web against the sober sky; the myriad windows 
shine with golden glint and glow ; the statued saint 
fills niche and coign above, around ; the very stones 
feel the vast uplift and the mighty fabric soars into 
the upper air; the wide doors stand open, and the 
mystically garbed priest holds the gold cross above 
the kneeling throng, the clear bell sounds, and the 
chants burst the swift-fleeing silences. O rapture 
rich of commixture with the height of heights and 
splendor of a love that loves but love ! 

MEPHISTOPHELES 

Ha! ha! ha! Superstitious in his maturing years! 

RAPHAEL 

What more ? 

FAUST 

In the great city the mighty truth falls from the lips 
of the unfearing man; before his throne the nations 

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CAPRICCIOS 

bow; kings hold his bridle; his voice is the voice 
of God. 

MEPHISTOPHELES 

Ha! ha! ha! Look again! 

FAUST 

bitterness of worse defeat than the elder ones! 
Into the sanctuary the mad corruption creeps ; foul- 
ness is seated on that golden throne ; spirit of evil, 
who deny, you are there in power again. Let the 
whole fabric vanish; why thus heap failure upon 
failure, each baser than the one upon whose heels 
it treads? angel of goodness, you are less strong 
than a faint wind that lifts no more than one frail 
gossamer from the rose's rim! 

While he is speaking, a remarkable transformation is taking 
place ; the entire scene, mountain, valley, lake, compress 
themselves into smaller dimensions ; the great figures of 
Raphael and Mephistopheles are dwarfed into lessening pro- 
portions ; Faust himself holds something of his former figure, 
but he too sinks into the attenuated landscape, yet, in an en-; 
tirely positive sense, he dominates the scene and the two 
angels, the one of darkness, and the one of light ; over and 
above and around shines an intolerable radiance before which 
all life hides its eyes, and from which proceeds speech. 

THE VOICE 

1 am the certainty of victory; before me the abysses 

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CAPRICCIOS 

are afraid; out of me have come good and evil; I 
accomplish myself; the beginning, the end, the 
glory am I; I give myself wholly and perpetually; 
the splendor of Love, whose power and utterance 
I am, shall be the all in all. 

A VAST MURMUR 

What you would, shall be done; we are as a drop 
of dew in the morning sun, as a vapor rising from 
a violet's heart, as a single tone struck from a 
golden lyre; we reach up unto you; we would do 
as you bid; we would be you! 

THE VOICE 

It shall be. 

The overpowering effulgence fades gradually away ; once 
more the landscape appears, but bathed in a glow, and clad in 
a freshness, which give it unfathonied depths of significance ; 
Raphael shines on his height, silver, serene, supreme ; over 
the sardonic aspect of Mephistopheles beams a lustre which is, 
as it were, the delight of service and the noble indication of 
a profound obedience. Faust dominates the whole ; he is 
mightier than the world and the angels ; the joyance of an 
assurance, deeper than faith, and true as the uttermost truth, 
fills his eyes ; he knows himself the infinite child of the in- 
finite ; principalities, powers, thrones, dominions, he under- 
stands to be part of his being, and adjuvants in the completion 
of the world's destiny as of his own. He looks toward 
the tableland in the mountain whither the long road has 

74 



CAPRICCIOS 

led ; he sees there the nations gathered in a festival, whose 
meaning is unbounded help, victorious achievement, mastery 
above the touch of failure or recedence. 

MEPHISTOPHELES 

There is a beyond; will you look also at the heart 
of this vision; I am the spirit that denies. 

RAPHAEL 

And I the spirit that everlastingly affirms. 

FAUST 

And I know that the glory of victory shall be un- 
broken and eternal. 

The sun has now arisen to a great height ; the lake shows 
brilliant in the distance ; the barren mountain top has a soft- 
ened smile cast over its herbless expanse of rocks ; below on 
the road one marks the movement of the daily life ; farmers 
driving their teams, pleasure-seekers on foot and in various 
vehicles ; a party of gay young people pause in the green 
meadow amid the hills. It is given Faust to see all this from 
his height. One fancies that a vanishing movement of cloud 
has an unusual radiance, and one imagines the gleam of silver 
mail in its rapidly ascending and dissipating expanse. Faust 
makes a brief sign to Mephistopheles, and descending, fol- 
lowed by his companion, disappears soon behind a projection 
of rock. 

The scene closes. 



75 



AT THE FOOT OF THE RAINBOW 



THE ARTIST 
HIS WIFE 
THEIR CHILD 
A FRIEND 



77 



THE STUDIO 

THE FRIEND {standing before the painting) 
You have indeed attempted a difficult subject. 
The morning scene, wrapped in these luminous 
mists, with its group of dancing figures, seems like 
the birth of a new world out of some creative dream 
of a god, fresh from his hand, lovely, gifted with a 
life that, even as we gaze at it, seems to unfold and 
reach out ever and ever to a sweeter, nobler per- 
fection. 

THE ARTIST 

The struggle grows ever more wearisome, and ap- 
parently is doomed to persistent failure. I have 
never allowed myself to descend to works that are 
merely popular, and so popularity has revenged 
herself on me by turning her back quite systemati- 
cally, and of malice aforethought. 

THE FRIEND 

The times to come will make you full amends. 

79 



CAPRICCIOS 

THE ARTIST 

It is now a good many months since that unconsol- 
ing consolation has been forced into my hearing. It 
had, somehow, an unsatisfactory ring, and, at the 
present juncture, it seems the worst of mockeries. 

THE FRIEND 

At the present juncture ? 

THE ARTIST 

Why should I have any concealments from you, 
whose early boyish attachment has continued 
through these bitter latter days ? The bond be- 
tween us has deepened and strengthened with the 
years, this bond of affection and interest, this bond 
of sympathy and constant encouragement. 

THE FRIEND 

Why have I not been told before ? 

THE ARTIST 

The common folly of presenting a superficial gloss 
to the eyes of men, which has no real subsistence 
is the circumstances which it illustrates. The game 
has for years been a losing one; had it not been for 
my wife, who has finally sacrificed everything, I 
should have been obliged to surrender long ago. 
Now the last citadel has been captured by the 

80 



■ ' • ^-^ 



CAPRICCIOS 

enemy; the last remnant of fortune left us by the 
death of a relative has been thrown into the 
crucible, but the baser metal does not know any 
transformation into gold. I shall be forced to 
give up my house, my studio ; we shall be wayfarers 
on the earth, without any shelter except the ashen 
skies and storm-filled winds of the unpropitious 
seasons. Strange, is it not, that I should paint 
morning scenes, forerunners of the golden daytime ? 
I shall thrust my brush into the most sombre of 
colors, and paint once more, just once more — a 
night piece, proper and perfect expression of my 
failure and shattered destiny. 

THE FRIEND 

You shall do no such thing; there are numberless 
ways open to you, and the best of these we will 
make choice of. 

THE ARTIST 

You speak of choice. Do you still believe that 
there is any such thing as choice ? We move in a 
mist and a maze; what we do is only a part of the 
inconsequence which encircles us; we isolate a 
little scene, make it wholly familiar to ourselves, 
imagine that we dominate it, and find at the last 
that we are swept into the abyss as those were who 
preceded us. 

8i 



CAPRICCIOS 

THE FRIEND 

Why do you persist, therefore, in creating the 
beautiful, as you call it ? Why do you so trouble 
yourself about the one kind of beauty to which you 
have given your whole of life and thought ? Why 
not do as some others, whom you decry and look 
down upon, but who, producing that which the 
many care for, reap the rewards which the many 
can bestow, and which you despise, while at the 
same time bewailing your fate because you do not 
get them ? 

THE ARTIST 

It is no longer a question of rewards; it is a ques- 
tion of subsistence for those I love. 

The wife enters ; she is clothed in a loose white robe, and 
carries a child, whose singular beauty at once strikes every be- 
holder. He has apparently just come from his bath, and wears 
only one soft garment, which leaves his rosy feet bare. He 
crows and gurgles and stretches out his arms to his father, 
whose gloomy face illumines when he sees him. The friend 
moves immediately towards the wife and child, and strokes the 
bright curly hair of the latter, who gazes up at him with wide, 
unfearing eyes. 

THE WIFE 

I hope that I am not intruding; I do not often dis- 
turb the working hours; at least, not when I am 
told, somewhat indirectly, that solitude will con- 
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CAPRICCIOS 

duce to the rapid completion of the toil; but I 
heard your voice, {to the friend^ as I was passing 
through the hall, and I wanted to show you our 
boy, whom you have not seen now for quite a 
while. 

THE FRIEND 

Andromache and Astyanax. 

THE WIFE 

You are always learned, but you should draw your 
illustrations from nearer home. 

THE FRIEND 

Saint Monica and Saint Augustine. 

THE ARTIST 

Nay, it will take too long to travel down the cen- 
turies; go out into these woods that surround our 
dwelling; the village is only a short half-mile from 
here; in the doorway you will see the mother seated 
with her child in her arms. 

THE FRIEND 

Not a bad thing to put into a picture; the subject 
too has the merit of being one which breaks no 
heads to understand. 

83 



CAPRICCIOS 

THE WIFE 

I can imagine what you have been talking about. 
i^She sets the boy down^ and he begins to walk around 
the room. He stops ^ and looks up at the picture wonder - 
ingly.) I have used all my persuasions, but I have 
remained wholly effectless. I see plainly, and feel 
strongly, that the ideal has in modern times come 
down out of the heavens to dwell with us. We are 
to behold it resident and vital in the everyday and 
the commonplace. We are to paint the daily life, 
but so to fill it with an illumination, evidence cer- 
tain and positive of the just and noble, that heaven 
is as patent around us as once it shone high up 
above us. (She seats herself, and the child comes to 
her and climbs into her lap?) 

THE ARTIST (somewhat moodily^ 
One can only see that which one is fitted for. It is 
useless to try work which belongs to some other 
man, and neglect that which we are called to do. 

THE WIFE 

Perchance we err in what we call our work, and 
should be willing to try new paths, when the old 
ones lead us into the dense depths of the jungle, 
where the air is suffocating and too hot for health- 
ful breath. 

84 



CAPRICCIOS 

THE FRIEND 

Thought is smgularly capable of being moulded 
into any form, whatso you will; nay, form is but 
thought, and so is eternally expressive. The an- 
tique and revered takes the impressure of the 
artist's fingers, and the most modern of conceptions 
shines through the changed and glorified legend 
and myth. 

THE WIFE 

Not without a certain difficulty because of the alien 
material. Why place dancing fauns in a landscape, 
which no longer harbors them, instead of the chil- 
dren who play in the green dappled sunlight, morn- 
ing after morning? (^The boy turns half around 
while she is speakings and smiles with lovely gracious- 
ness on his father and the friend?) 

THE FRIEND 

Your words are convincing, but I should seek no 
forest and its children playing beneath its branches, 
nor the near peasant home with its patient maternity. 

THE ARTIST 

What then ? 

THE FRIEND 

Here under your own roof you shall find that, which, 
blossoming into genuine glory upon your canvas, 

8s 



CAPRICCIOS 

will bring to you the response which means that 
you have reached the secret of the world, and know 
what it is to be bathed in the mighty love which is 
life and fame. 

THE ARTIST 

You bewilder me ; I have sought for so many years, 
and with such utter devotion; I have also found; 
the world will at last come to me, and recognize 
itself in me. 

THE FRIEND 

There is no need of the dull waiting; those whom 
you love best have long ago spoken the word into 
your ear in diverse ways, but you have neither seen 
nor heard. 

THE WIFE 

What is it that you are saying ? Do not lessen, in 
any way, the strength of the message I bring him ; let 
him learn to see the infinite beauty in the near and 
the familiar; let him bring solace to simple and 
untutored hearts; he will then know what it is to 
be the noble means by which the creative soul of 
the world brings its due wonders into sight and 
light. To be such a means is to be an artist in 
truth and reality. 

86 



CAPRICCIOS 

He turns at these words, and sees, with a sudden revelation 
which irradiates him, what a picture is made by the wife and 
child. The friend, standing beside him, watches with grave 
interest the changing expression of the artist's face. The 
child lays its head upon its mother's shoulder, and the model is 
complete. The artist snatches the picture from the easel, 
places a new canvas upon it, seizes his brushes and palette, and 
begins to work with a fierceness and a certainty that he has 
never shown before. Every stroke is absolutely right and 
assured, it is the clear vigor of one for whom every mystery of 
the art has vanished, the perfect touch that is the very activity 
of spiritual might itself. 

THE ARTIST 

It comes to me with blinding inspiration. There, do 
not move ; I must have you I do not know for how 
long; you shall see what a wonderful flower will 
grow under my fingers. 

The wife and friend exchange glances ; she holds her atti- 
tude, and the child remains mute with a lovely astonishment in 
his eyes and face ; out of the mist of the canvas the glow of 
color already begins to shimmer ; the friend looks on exult- 
antly ; the scene closes. 



87 



CAPRICCIOS 
II. 

A glen in the mountains. It is at the end of a winding 
narrow gorge, through which a stream leaps, gurgling from 
rock to rock, and making here and there quieter limpid 
pools. In front the cliff rises to considerable height ; it is 
covered with soft wet moss, and trees grow from various 
ledges and projections ; a waterfall, sparse and feathery, 
sweeps down the perpendicular side, and mingles with a small 
clear expanse of waters at its foot, through which the broad 
stones emerge brown and tipped with moss. One of these 
upholds the child, fearless and laughing ; on another the 
mother stands and watches his every movement ; the artist is 
stretched along a fallen tree near by ; around the half-circle 
above, the waving trees show against the deep blue sky, across 
which flit birds, and slower-moving clouds. It is the begin- 
ning of the afternoon, and the sunlight pours down into the 
shadowy glen, irradiating the dash of the waters. 

THE WIFE 

There, child, do not move about so much. Mother 
will have to take you up. 

THE ARTIST 

He will surely fall into the water, and injure him- 
self on the rocks; give him to me, and let me hold 
him, while he takes his fill of gazing. 

The child seats himself, and his little legs dangle over the 
waters, but are too short to reach them. 

88 



CAPRICCIOS 

THE WIFE 

Now he is safe ; I should like to hold my cup under 
the waterfall, and get a drink of the descending 
foam. How like a glistening mist it is! 

THE ARTIST 

Nectar from the very heavens; it comes from the 
mountains beyond, which we saw while we rowed 
on the lake. Drink, dear one, and bring the sky 
into my life even more than you have hitherto done. 

THE WIFE 

I am afraid that I cannot reach it. 

THE ARTIST 

Let me get it for you. 

THE WIFE 

No; that would hardly be ;;?y bringing the sky into 
your life. 

THE ARTIST 

Even so, even so. 

She leaps from rock to rock with some difficulty, and reaches 
one just under the cliff ; the water falls in a thin shower in 
front of her, but she does not mind it ; she holds her cup 
under and it is soon filled ; she turns for a moment, and stands 
there, part of the golden foam, the very spirit of the light and 
mist ; her hair glistens with many drops ; she smiles as she 

89 



CAPRICCIOS 

places her lips to the cup ; then she leaps back firmly and 
securely and bids the child drink, who does so laughingly ; at 
last she reaches the artist, who drains the cup as though he 
were tasting the very wine of life. She seats herself beside 
him. 

THE ARTIST 

So, that is well ; the boy will be still for a few mo- 
ments, and when he gets restless, I will bring him 
here in spite of his certain objections. 

THE WIFE 

It is indeed a lovely spot. 

THE ARTIST (inoodUy) 

We are reckless like all persons of our class; we 

are on the verge of ruin, and we spend the remnant 

of our substance in a vacation which we cannot 

afford. 

THE WIFE 

Life is made up of recollections and anticipations; 
the former, in our case, shall all of them be lovely, 
and I, at least, see no great darkness in the latter. 

THE ARTIST 

We shall have to give up our studio, our home, our 
friends. 

THE WIFE 

We shall find other places and companionships. 
90 



CAPRICCIOS 

THE ARTIST 

And my career is over. 

THE WIFE 

Your career is only beginning. 

A voice hallooing up the gorge is heard ; it has a ring of 
good cheer ; it pauses, and then breaks forth again. 

THE ARTIST 

It is our friend; you knew that I expected him ? 

THE WIFE 

Yes, I knew. 

The artist springs to his feet, and, placing his hands to his 
lips, answers the call down the echoing cleft ; the halloo 
comes back, more and more resonant with cheer. He leaps 
forward in eagerness to meet the visitor, while the wife steps 
over to the child, and takes him into her arms. It is but a 
few moments, and the artist and the friend are near her. The 
latter takes the boy and kisses him. The lonely spot seems to 
grow glad with the new presence. 

THE ARTIST 

And now what news ? Or would you rather remain 
silent ? 

THE FRIEND 

Nay, there is no such need of haste; let me feel 
your presence awhile; and let me become some- 



CAPRICCIOS 

what familiar with this recess in the mountains, 
lovelier than any words can make it, and holding 
a charm, which not even your brushes can wholly 
reproduce. 

THE ARTIST 

Unless your message is propitious, I shall never 
again reproduce anything. 

THE FRIEND 

Have you thought of the new occupation to which 
you intend to devote yourself ? 

THE ARTIST 

That is a matter not worthy of a moment's choice ; 
for every man there is but one occupation; take 
that away from him, and the rest are but varying 
forms of the formless indifference. 

THE FRIEND 

Heretical always, even here in the woods and hills ; 
still I have a message for you. 

The wife with the boy has gone nearer the waterfall again 
while they have been talking ; she stands on a rock somewhat 
smoother and broader than the rest ; the waters gurgle and 
foam and bubble around her ; the child plays with her hair ; 
she speaks loud enough so that the artist and friend can hear 
her. 

92 



CAPRICCIOS 

THE WIFE 

Whatsoever message you deliver, remember it is my 
property as well as yours. 

THE FRIEND 

It is your property, indeed. 

THE ARTIST 

You are purposely delaying; yet you are only half 
serious; come, come, let it emerge from the gate 
of your lips. 

THE FRIEND 

Then here it is. Your picture has been hung on 
the walls of the academy in the place above all 
others which you yourself would have chosen. 

THE ARTIST 

I am not skied as usual. I left it all with you. My 
hopelessness sent me here, and I have, as I agreed, 
shut out all information from the world which I 
left behind me. 

THE FRIEND 

It was what you especially needed; you were 
wholly unnerved and unstrung; forgetfulness, 
calm, simple enjoyment of the passing hour, were 
what your condition called for. I am a physician, 
most to be trusted and most sound. 

93 



t 



CAPRICCIOS 

THE WIFE 

I never had any doubt of the result. 

THE ARTIST 

Nay, dear wife, without you I should have suc- 
cumbed long ago. 

THE FRIEND 

Why do I dally, then ? I am indeed playing with 
my own pleasure. 

He begins to halloo as he had previously done ; a myriad 
echoes bring back the tones, and the whole air seems per- 
vaded with joyance. 

THE ARTIST {wMte to the lips) 

What next ? Why do you talk and act thus ? 

THE FRIEND 

I hope you will learn the lesson fully; the new sun 
has arisen ; it remains with you to bring on the full 
and complete day. 

THE ARTIST 

I have been learning lessons all my life; and I yet 
remain a mere pupil, when I should be a master. 

THE FRIEND 

The masterhood has come ; you have been groping 
all these years; you now know what that occupa- 

94 



CAPRICCIOS 

tion really is, which alone is worthy of the name. 
No more landscapes with fauns and nymphs and 
satyrs; human life, its simple joys and hopes, its 
many sorrows and consolations, these you shall 
transfigure with your perfect touch and color. 

THE ARTIST 

What now ? 

THE FRIEND 

Your picture is the success of the season ; it is the 
success of many seasons; it is accepted as the evi- 
dence of genuine and permanent masterhood; the 
grave responsibility has come upon you — true 
leader of thought and hope to your generation. 

THE WIFE 

I have heard it all, but I did not need your words, 
I knew it always. 

THE ARTIST 

Life begins for me anew. 

The child laughs aloud. The artist and his friend turn. 
The rock on which the wife is standing glows in the opulent 
sunlight like very gold ; the wavelets and ripples about it 
quiver and glint with radiance ; and, rising above her and the 
child, from the stream in the gorge to the top of the waterfall, 
stretches the rainbow which the sun makes there at his accus- 
tomed hour. 

95 



CAPRICCIOS 

THE FRIEND 

The proverbial pot of gold! Pay homage to the 
wife and child who have brought it to you — the new 
art which shall make you what you ought to be, and 
the world nobler, because they and you have lived 
in it. 



96 



MYRIAD-MINDED MAN 
An Imaginary Conversation 



THINKER 
BELIEVER 
ARTIST 
DILETTANTE 



97 



THE ARTIST 

We can rest here. My walk, a long one for me, 
has fatigued me a little. Here is a noble outlook 
upon the sea, brilliant under the summer sun. 
The cliff sweeps swiftly down to the white curve of 
sand ; the low shrubbery in successive rings clothes 
it to the very foot ; the white sails flash as they ap- 
proach, and become part of the blue mist as they 
recede ; the grass at the foot of these trees is thick 
enough, and, in the grateful shade, looking forth 
upon the moving waters, we can sit, discoursing 
upon free-will and fate, growth and decay, beauty 
and truth, life and death. 

THE DILETTANTE {after they have seated themselves 

in various easy postures^ 
An excellent series of antitheses! How every 
thought clings to its opposite ! You bring up one 
picture, and the other is sure to follow it ! We are 
thus in a perpetual oscillation; to cling to one 
thing, or trust oneself to a single truth, a so-called 
eternal verity, is a childish sort of self-deception, 

99 



CAPRICCIOS 

out of which we shall emerge as from our oyster- 
condition some day. 

THE BELIEVER 

You really do not hold to that quite as you say it ? 

THE DILETTANTE 

Hold to it ? You know very well that I do not 
hold to anything. 

THE THINKER 

Not even that you do not hold to anything. 

THE DILETTANTE 

Why should we, of malice aforethought, set limits 
to the boundlessness, which is our true self and 
nature ? There is nothing anywhere that is fixed 
or permanent; the river forever flows to the sea; 
the winds always indulge in mad revels about the 
earth; the eternal stars shine but for a time, and 
then the night knows them no more; the mind of 
man moves from one mood to another, forever 
changing, sometimes radiant with a light that we 
call joy, sometimes buried in a gloom that we call 
sorrow, always in transition, always convinced of 
the certainty of the dream in which it finds itself for 
an interval, longer or shorter, as its humor lasts. 

THE ARTIST 

The world of dreams has at all times a strange 

lOO 



CAPRICCIOS 

fascination for us ; a world that we build according 
to our own caprice; and wonderful it is, that at 
every era in the world's history, for periods of in- 
definite duration, the caprices of men have a singu- 
lar unanimity; what is in the heart and mind of 
each, those who feel more deeply, or think more 
clearly, thrust forth into sharp and fine expression ; 
that dream which is called nature was different to 
the Greek from its splendor as we dwell in it to- 
day; that dream which we call life has now ele- 
ments in it which it never had before. 

THE BELIEVER 

It would seem to me more correct to say that our 
recognition of this dream has in it elements which 
it never had before. I am also little inclined to be 
satisfied with the word dream as applied to what 
must be fact; except, indeed, that the word involves 
that the fact is spiritual, that it is made up through- 
out of conditions, which could not be save as pre- 
supposing mind and heart and purpose. A dream 
that is the same to all men, that is permanent the 
more we understand it, comes very close to being 
reality itself. This dream, moreover, in its substance 
and truth, has always been, has always been com- 
plete, could never have been other than finished 
and perfect. Growth and change can only be in 
our deepening knowledge of the true and abiding. 

lOI 



CAPRICCIOS 

THE DILETTANTE 

The mood of the optimist ; we live in that during 
these early summer days; who would not believe 
while he gazes out over yonder flashing expanse, so 
softly blue, so gently alluring ! There, in the blue 
mist, surely is the earthly paradise for which we all 
long; and every white sail disappears into it. 
Soon, however, the autumn winds will be blowing 
over a gray and lustreless sea; darkness, deep and 
unfathomable, will hover over the horizon; and 
we shall betake ourselves to the mood of pessimism, 
with its fascination of pain, its soft enjoyment of 
anguish, its sweet and morbid self-pity, its moon- 
lighted rapture of pathos and death. 

THE THINKER 

I should like to hold upon my hand, as it were, 
these singular views of existence, and look at them 
carefully, under such glasses as the mind surely 
furnishes for the analysis and discovery of potencies, 
which make life what it is, and whose understanding 
alone gives value to what we are and seek. These 
vacillations between contradictory points of view 
have a wondrous interest, and these shiftings from 
darkness into light, and from light into darkness, 
have at least this unchangeable about them, that 
they shift and change. 

102 



CAPRICCIOS 

THE ARTIST 

I would live always in the concrete; the thin ab- 
stractions that the intellect weaves for us seem to 
me less real than my dreams of the speeding night. 
And yet I cannot altogether yield myself to the sub- 
jection of my evanescent moods. Somehow, to me, 
one mood returns again and again ; one dream per- 
sists as no other dream persists; and as I wander 
through gallery after gallery, as I stand before 
Middle-Age cathedral or modern church, as I gaze 
upon forms cast in bronze or hewn from marble, I 
find that the same mood has filled the heart of the 
artist everywhere and always. 

THE DILETTANTE 

What may that so persistent mood be ? 

THE ARTIST 

It is the hunger for perfection, the thirst after 
righteousness or rightness, whichever you please, 
the eager demand for harmony and completeness. 
The rose by the wayside, sweet and tender though 
it may be, has somewhere a defect ; the sky, with its 
ever changing clouds, has yet a tone which is not 
wholly what the eye longs for and must have: the 
water comes to the shore and recedes, flashes in 
myriad resplendence far out under the freshening 
wind, but it has somehow a shadow too much, or a 

103 



CAPRICCIOS 

glow too excessive: under the transfiguring touch 
of the painter, or in the rhythmical page of the poet, 
all which is simply right appears, as it were, by a 
miracle great as that which belongs to the birth of 
worlds, or the rise of souls out of the deep, dark 
mystery. 

THE DILETTANTE 

What century is this which thus speaks to us ? The 
dreams of an elder time. Not that I do not believe 
in them; I yield myself to their charm, and float 
away upon their melodious radiance even as you 
do, but it is far from being the dominant mood of 
the day or generation to which we belong. 

THE BELIEVER 

It is a strange sea upon which you are willing to 
be tossed: whether it be light or dark, subject to 
malignant storms or visited by serene sunshine, 
the slender vessel in which you venture to ride is 
yet borne from haven to haven, and nowhere can 
you find secure harborage or satisfying rest. I 
listen to the solemn voices, which have come direct 
from the heavens, and fill the marts of the world 
and the mighty solitudes with the messages which 
whoso would live must hear. Not beauty do we 
seek, for that would cloy upon our taste with its 

104 



CAPRICCIOS 

rich sweetness long before the revelation for which 
we clamor might come ; but devotion to the Supreme 
Life, whose essence is self-sacrifice, whose being is 
love, whose servant and manifestation is loveliness, 
must inflame our hearts with enthusiasms, whence 
all other illuminations take their color and endur- 
ance. 

THE THINKER 

Yet all these rest upon deeper demonstration and 
evidence. Who shall say that the succession of 
delights, wherein we bathe ourselves so eagerly, have 
in them anything of permanent strength to give to 
our vacillating hopes and glimmering thoughts of 
the certain and the eternal ? Or who shall assure 
us that the multitudinous and clashing words of 
prophets and ministrants at varying altars bear in 
them the everlasting and the divine ? The truth 
must be self- revelatory ; reason, holy, supreme, can 
ask for no reasons, which itself does not present 
and create ; thought can go to no oracles, profound 
as the deep and abiding forms which it beholds 
within its all-embracing reality; universes, gods, 
serenely dwell within that mighty view, whose com- 
pleteness is veritable subsistence, whose calm gives 
place to all aspirations, all dreams, whose mutual 
and interwoven relatedness is evidence irrefragable. 

105 



CAPRICCIOS 

THE DILETTANTE 

I look out over the waters: I see myriads on 
myriads of ripples, each bearing within its pellucid 
veil a golden lamp, which burns now brightly, and 
then fades to be kindled anew at the exhaustless 
sun ; the light weaves across the broad expanse an 
ever changing series of motions and brilliances; I 
yield myself to the fitful charm. I would no more 
be fettered than yonder race and riot of corusca- 
tions. What the sea may be in itself, I do not care 
to fathom, nay, I do not know why I should ask 
myself such a question, and as to whence it may 
have come, that is a darkness where never a single 
star guides the feet of any man. To enjoy is to 
live, and suffering itself, if rightly appreciated, is 
only the most exquisite of pleasures. 

THE BELIEVER 

You look out upon the sea, a vast, soulless reach, 
a play of conscienceless powers, a mockery of the 
movements that are held leashed and obedient to 
a purpose, grand as the world, and thoroughly alive 
in every fibre. Nature is a strange and contradict- 
ory symbol ; what we are, we learn by recognizing 
that we are not what nature is ; out there the storm 
of unbridled and unmoral powers, the tumult of 
wild passions unsubordinated in themselves to high 
io6 



CAPRICCIOS 

intents, the vastness which beholds with stolid indif- 
ference the procession of events, ignoble or glori- 
ous, passing before it; it is the heart and soul of 
humanity, the spirit, which is transcendent and 
divine, which throws around that turmoil the joy- 
ous subjection to lofty ends, and builds it into the 
ideal, which is all light and forever a deeper and 
deeper consummationo 

THE ARTIST 

I stood, a few nights ago, in the presence of a more 
portentous sea, and a commingling of lights of a 
more inspiring character. It was in the early 
evening, and I gazed from a window in one of those 
sky-scaling buildings with which the avarice of the 
modern man invades the realm of the air. Below 
me stretched a vast portion of the seething and 
toiling city; the gray roofs in the increasing dark- 
ness fused into a dull indistinctness; from the 
chimneys rose a pale vapor that made the mystery 
stranger and weirder; all things were blended into 
a sea-like breadth and aloofness; outlines of build- 
ings and towers were blurred into a mighty chaos, 
from which the touch of the morning would bring 
them again into separateness, cold and severe as 
truth; but throughout the gloom glistened and 
scintillated and shone the array of lights from 

107 



CAPRICCIOS 

countless windows, which themselves were lost in the 
prevalent obscurity They flickered and played 
and danced everywhere, about them a mist made 
by the night, visible, but unearthly, seeming not 
golden as stars, but a fluidity of radiance, ever 
dominating the shadows, and palpitant with a life 
as of hope and dream. Yonder sea is but a cold 
and vague caprice, set side by side with that vision 
of spirit, victoriously contending with gloom and 
making it subservient to beauty. 

THE DILETTANTE 

One of the finest moods of the day. This is the 
time when humanitarianism has great fascination ; 
it is only a temporary guise of the spirit ; slavery is 
just as admirable when seen as it should be; the 
self-sacrifice of a great number of men so that a 
fierce ecstasy may sweep through a few hearts is 
certainly a spectacle which may give one a passing 
thrill; just as now the uplift of toiling millions to a 
place where they will know how to suffer as those 
whom they envy have done for generations brings 
with it an enthusiasm that one may well rejoice in 
for a short while. 

THE THINKER 

There can be no real return to views which were 
the common property of men ages ago, which bad 

io8 



CAPRICCIOS 

for them the strength of unshaken conviction, and 
which, in the process of the suns, have disappeared 
as elements in world-understandings larger and 
more competent. We may fancy ourselves as much 
held entranced by the romantic hues glorifying 
historic periods long past and overlived as by the 
soberer tints that belong to the present, but such 
an attempt is possible only as a sort of self-decep- 
tion, and for a very brief period. Even Greece, 
with her charm of finish and exquisite color and 
superb moderation, is after all an immature effort 
of the human spirit compared with the labors of 
to-day. 

THE DILETTANTE 

What has maturity or immaturity to do with it ? 
A certain mood on a large and pervasive scale ex- 
ists; it has its necessary forms and conditions; it 
has its features, lovely and repulsive; it has been 
held by mistaken men as the one thing essential, 
the one aspect of the world, which shall be sure and 
permanent; it fades and fails as all others have 
done. The only thing which persists is the possi- 
bility of non-persistence; drink deep of the cup of 
to-day; to-morrow, when it comes, with its new sun 
and sky and cloud, will offer you a new wine, sweet 
again to the taste that yields itself up to it; and 
the memory can at all times sink backward into 

109 



CAPRICCIOS 

what has been, and the heart look forward to what 
must be. 

THE BELIEVER 

You turn upon the mighty procession too cursory a 
glance. Unhappily for your dream, the sequence of 
events is not one which can be shuffled backwards 
and forwards like a loo^e pack of cards. The 
memory may indeed decipher its own palimpsest at 
its own will, and lift up a shadowy layer of words 
deep under the last one fresh from the transcriber's 
hands, but the emotion itself which you crave is 
woven of unnumbered strands, and not the least 
part of the miraculous joy is the going back to it 
from the mixed and deepened feeling of to-day. 
The exquisite changefulness of the spirit rests upon 
the deeper truth, that it forevermore restores itself 
from its own changes, and holds within its per- 
sistency the enchanting mirages of its own evanish- 
ments. 

THE DILETTANTE 

You cannot really speak of a high or low; you can- 
not even speak of a simple or a complex. Modern 
life merely accentuates that of which other lives 
made but little; and antiquity gave itself to labors 
wherein we are but as children compared with it 
in dignity and completeness, 
no 



CAPRICCIOS 

THE THINKER 

The very succession of time itself, in its bare sim- 
plicity, consists perforce of a less and more; the 
latter is because it has in it a complexity of moments 
which the earlier could not possess; the complex 
and the high are coterminous; from these results 
we cannot escape if we would not throw our whole 
intellectual life into confusion; a mood is only such 
because we can abandon it for a permanent con- 
sideration of the world which takes it up into itself 
as the great ether the glittering bubbles filled with 
the breath of children in the clear hours of a van- 
ishing twilight. 

THE DILETTANTE 

I find myself in the land of my severest enemies. 
Yet I have weapons with which to contend against 
them ; the victory which they hope to win over me 
is as transient as the mood of changefulness in 
which I love to dwell. 

THE ARTIST 

How can you say that you love ? That, at least in 
its ultimate form, can know not shadow of turning. 

THE DILETTANTE 

You press me hard. The Eleusinian mysteries were 
not for all men ; and the cult to which I am glad to 

III 



CAPRICCIOS 

belong has also its deep privacies and sanctities, 
where the profane and vulgar may not intrude. 

THE ARTIST 

It is a gloom which has no allurements for me ; on 
its gateway I read the dolorous legend, but I ques- 
tion whether the love of any god has aught to do 
with the fashioning of that indescribable realm. 
Rather do I seek the region in which poetry and 
song and painting have ever found a congenial 
home; the wealth and victories of all times and 
places have been to it only as servants and helpers; 
power has found its chief claim to recognition in 
its willingness to further the ends of a world- 
embracing artistry; there life reaches its superbest 
splendor, its grandest fruition; the past, with all 
its glories, its aspirations, its agonies, its ecstasies, 
is there; the present glows under that sun with a 
perfection that its reality is powerless to attain ; the 
unapparent and the unaccomplished shine along 
those skies as never sunset beneath the warm winds 
of the tropics; and all that region is the free crea- 
tion of the spirit, amorous alone of the high per- 
fection, whose meaning is love to all things and 
men. 

THE DILETTANTE 

Into that region I am fain to follow you. 

112 



CAPRICCIOS 

THE ARTIST 

Nay, that you can never do; for only the eye, 
single and sincere, can see it, the heart, fixed and 
resolute, can pass the warders at the gates. 

THE BELIEVER 

There are two aspects of the universe which must 
fill the mind of man with reverence, as one of 
earth's greatest thinkers said years ago — the 
serenity of the starry heavens, and the determina- 
tions of the will; the majestic procession of worlds 
on worlds from the abyss of creative life, and the 
superb mastery of the whole by the self-legislative 
might of the invisible. I penetrate into the realm 
of the power and strength of inmost being; I see 
the region where Freedom breathes and dwells; I 
behold the interblending of deeds, whose motive is 
the whole of action and whose result is the whole 
of goodness. The garment which that region wears 
in its every valley and hill and river, its radiances 
by night, and its suffusing sun by day, is the high 
and ultimate loveliness. Every heart-throb of the 
multitudinous host, inhabiting there as in their 
primeval paradise, is love for the envyless gener- 
osity, which dwells at the center, which resides at 
the circumference, which is complete in every 
part, which glows in itself, an ineffable splendor, 

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CAPRICCIOS 

above, around, within. With the eyes of a faith 
which has emerged sublime from the dark wood of 
questioning, I see; with the strength of a hope, 
which has beheld its own gradual realization, I 
know; it is the abode of souls, permanent, eternal. 

THE DILETTANTE 

I have often solaced myself with the gentle opiate 
of that mood; I have often sped far away on the 
wings of that dream; and now I am with you on 
those mystical highlands. 

THE BELIEVER 

Nay, you mistake. The pathway to that land is the 
hard one of renunciation upon renunciation; the 
grassy fields and flower-sprent meadows are left be- 
hind; beyond the barren waste it lies; you can 
never have trodden that way; those skies are igno- 
rant of you. 

THE THINKER 

There is yet a beyond which makes the glory of 
beauty, and feeds the flame of holiness, which 
needs no revelation save itself, no prophet save the 
voice of its own eternity, no allurement save the 
unfolding of its intertexture, within the which life 
and thought and dreams are woven like the figures 
of a marvelous tapestry. It is the calm and noble 
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CAPRICCIOS 

rest which gives motion to all restlessness ; it is the 
assurance which thrills in all faith; it is the com- 
pletion, which burns in all love. It is the purity 
and the majesty, whence all longing has descended, 
and into which it must return as into its haven and 
home. 

THE DILETTANTE 

I have never had a great affection for your pale 
abstractions. Yet I have filled my uplifted cup with 
that moonlight and drank it off, making myself 
believe it was wine. I have trodden those vales, 
filled with silvery mist, with something of a shudder, 
and have known the chilly thrill, which you call 
pleasure. 

THE THINKER 

Nay, deceive yourself no longer, dear friend ; such 
toil as is needed to unbar the portals of that mystery 
calls for other thews than you are endowed withal. 

THE DILETTANTE 

You cast me forth from your respective paradises ? 
Where then do I dwell ? 

THE THINKER 

The land of caprice has no fixity; did it continue, 
it would not be the land of caprice. Bubbles wander 



CAPRICCIOS 

through the infinite paths of the air; lights of the 
fen speed from ripple to ripple, from flag-flower to 
flag-flower; moods of the mind flutter across its 
surface and vanish into the nought. Begin your 
journey again; gird up your loins for the steep and 
bitter climb; wear the straight and sober garb of 
patience; throw into the first flame the wings of 
your restless undoing; the universal, which is all 
things and all thoughts, stands waiting to receive 
you with its benediction and its salvation. 



ii6 



THE DAY OF DAYS. 

A PROTHALAMION. 



117 



THE SUN 

I pour a flood of red and gold over the sky because 
I am full of a wonderful joy; the night is fleeing 
before me, and the dark hovers in vanishing mists 
at the verge of the earth. 

THE CLOUDS 

We are sailing and sailing over the winds; we were 
heavy with sleep and with night, and the shadows 
crept all through us; but now we swim on the tide 
of crinkling light, and our thin bodies thrill and 
flush with the fervor of joy. 

THE WINDS 

We move faster and faster to the goal; we looked 
up in the night and saw not a single star, and we 
moaned as we longed for the coming of the morn- 
ing; now we are changed into the gold of the sun, 
his radiance lives in us, and makes us voices of 
fresh and clear and crystalline joy. 

119 



CAPRICCIOS 

HE 

I waited long, ah, so long and so wearily; once I 
thought the sun would never return to the heavens; 
it was not even night, for the moon was not, nor 
the stars, only a blackness, a silence, a dullness; 
now the skies are aflame with brightness, now the 
winds are filled with sweet singing, now the day 
has surely come, and I see all my dreams waiting 
to greet me deep in your eyes. 

SHE 

Do not speak a word, but hearken to our heart- 
beats; every sound is a loss of the silence, every 
murmur disturbs the flowing of breath into breath 
and life into life, the joy that is the soul of the day 
and the summer, the joy that takes us and makes 
us one with it, one with the summer, with the day, 
with the sunshine. 

THE RIVER 

I am now a rippled moving flood of silver, the sun 
is above me in the heart of the heavens ; I flow past 
field and village and town, the children come down 
to me and mirror their glowing faces, the boats 
cleave across my fluent shining. I rejoice in thejr 
glad rocking from side to side, and speed swiftly 
past village and town and field to the large and 
smooth and sounding sea. 

I20 



CAPRICCIOS 

THE GRASS 

I am filling myself full with the sunshine. I gave 
up my dewdrops gladly hours ago. I move steadily 
across the wide fields and grow even down to the 
river's margin; I wander under the shadows of the 
forest, and leave spaces for the little flowers to rise 
between my spears; the sweetness of the earth 
comes to your eyes in me, and I am like a laugh 
around the green earth. 

THE TREES 

We climb upward and upward; down below in our 
roots there is something that makes us long for the 
air and the sunlight; we look to the blue sky afar, 
and push through the winds to the source of the 
glow and the radiance ; our myriad leaves are like 
many little voices that sing from their slender 
perches on the branches, green small birds that do 
not wish to fly away from us, but carol of the rap- 
ture that rules in their life and their growing, of 
the bliss that flickers in their manifold movements. 

HE 

Look into the depth of the sky; the hot tide of sun- 
light fills up the cup of the air, and the glow of the 
wine of day is shining through its pure and lucid 
sides; it is the wine of the joy we are drinking. 

121 



CAPRICCIOS 

SHE 

Why should I longer keep back what I long to say ? 
What is there now to hold me from confessing ? I 
would have said all long ago but my fear restrained 
me. 

THE CHILDREN 

We rose this morning gaily and sped to the fields; 
some of us stopped by the swift moving river, some 
of us sat on the rocks and watched the slim cool 
fishes, some of us stayed under the trees and told 
the old stories, long and slow and golden with sun- 
shine. 

THE WOMEN 

We labor still and bend with our toiling; we know 
the trouble that comes with children; we bore 
them under our hearts and still we bear them ; we 
are fearful of what befalls them or may befall them; 
all our. life is set apart from our living, going away 
from us, who shall say whither ? This indeed it is 
to be a woman, to give up life forever to others, 
to see ourselves apart from our heart-throbs, to feel 
the pulse of the world uniting with ours in our 
yielding of all that we are or may be. 

SHE 

I will withhold not one thing which you ask me, I 

122 



CAPRICCIOS 

make myself a part of your thought, I make myself 
a part of you, touching thus the world. 

THE MEN 

We have built here a home by the roadside, white 
and far seen under the tree-shadows, leading unto 
the town which we, too, have builded; yet all our 
work in the hot sunshine is not for us; we do what 
we do for all others. 

HE 

Yea, give yourself up wholly, I take it all forever; 
strength are you thus to the hand, and breath to 
the thought; I bring you the world and its splen- 
dor, being holpen of you; I fashion all, and you 
are its joy and its sovereign! 

EARTH 

The ground of life is forever firm and deep and sure 
and strong ; a bed for blossoms and grasses to spring 
in; it gives itself to use and growth and loveliness 
at the least word and the faintest call. 

AIR 

Circles of currents and wildness of eddies, viewless 
save in the mystical blue of distance, fluent to make 
and unmake my commotions, wondrous as thoughts 
that flow through a soul, subtle and high and yield- 

123 



CAPRICCIOS 

ing yet master, sending clouds afar on my mes- 
sages, breath of the body and strength of the 
dreamer, speeding upwards to stars and to suns, 
voice of the music of the day or the night-time, 
know you not, prophet and thinker, what the tales 
are that I am forever telling, and whither I lead on 
my wings of marvelous swiftness ? 

HE 

There is nothing that I will not speak into your 
ear; I learn many marvels, and hear many secrets, 
and they are all only for you. 

WATER 

Colored with light that falls from the heavens, 
moulded in forms that enclose me sweetly, glitter- 
ing clearly amid the emerald grasses, falling from 
rock to rock down the mountains, piercing the air 
on my pilgrimage sunward, crooning my lay in the 
ear of my shores, giving myself as drink to fair 
blossoms, shining transformed in tree and in leaflet, 
what a changeable joyance I am, what a purity, 
what a miracle of loving! 

SHE 

You are held in my life as a dream in the soul of a 
dreamer. I fleet forward during times when you 
are not with me, and encircle the very outermost 

124 



CAPRICCIOS 

rim of the world with the flood that is my longing, 
and so enfold you as a star is enfolded by the deep 
blue night, as a singer by the golden mist of his 
music, as an island by its lake's dark-green and 
wind-kissed ripples. 

FIRE 

Restless as hopes that may not slumber, red in the 
skies of midsummer's dawn, strong to fashion and 
make by uncreating, wise with the aims that are 
deepest and surest, monarch swift in my mutable 
garb, holding asunder to bind in closer friendships, 
bending all strengths to the rule of the nobler, po- 
tence and will and passion of joyance, light of the 
suns and flambeau whence starshine gains what it 
has of radiance, happy to gleam on the cottager's 
hearthstone, eye of the eye that returns to itself 
from the clear waters, what are men save as I am 
the pulsebeat, the heart of their hearts, and the 
life of their living ? 

SHE 

I will whatever you will ; I know deep down in my 
heart the longing that your eyes do not half so 
clearly reveal ; what you ask of me is a light thing 
to do, light as flames of sunlight that flash from the 
many - peaked waters, light as the dance of the 
leaves when the winds are ready for playtime, or 

125 



CAPRICCIOS 

the spreading of the petals of roses at the touch of 
summer. 



THE LIVING 

O the wondrous light that fills the high heavens ! O 
the days that pass to the sound of sweet singing! 
O the bliss of being and dreaming! The earth 
moves gladly around her father sun, and his smile 
illumines her in all her dancing. We would not 
have summer prevailing forever; the icy glitter of 
snow fields around us, the frozen streams amid the 
rocks of the mountains, glistening and glowing with 
reflected noontide, the talks at night while the cold 
holds the sky without, make in our souls their own 
sweet music. We rejoice here in the hours that 
linger as if loth to leave us in their inevitable pass- 
age. Like unto a boat wherein we are riding amid 
the swift billows, seeing the distant shores and 
islands faintly, the waters sweeping about us as far 
as the eye may reach, the crystalline pureness over- 
head and beneath, the fathomless depths of sea and 
dim silence around, is the Now in the voiceless 
ocean of Time, waves of the centuries closing about 
it, stillness encircling the one spot of music. But 
we are friends sailing in the little bark, sunlight 
envelops us, sunlight enwalls us, and our labors 
content and delight us. 
126 



CAPRICCIOS 

THE DEAD 

We have thrown from us the burdens that weighed 
so heavily ; we have emerged from the shadows and 
entered the day; we are no longer the slaves of 
strange fears and stranger doubts ; we are in a cer- 
tainty of bliss that widens and deepens ; we see how 
our lives are wondrously linked and united; wher- 
ever a joy springs in a waiting bosom, its thrill is 
felt in all hearts in all the heavens; wherever a 
truth lightens across a soul's horizon, a new star 
shines in the skies that are ours; we live in this 
garden of magical flowers, that grow into view as 
our myriad dreams flow through us ; when a higher 
throb of love fleets over our being, a richer flush 
augments the pulsing sea of color; with the white 
clear stars of truth above us, with the glow and re- 
surgence of our loves in blooms around us, with 
our acts reverberating miraculously from afar or 
near, life is all light and hue and responsive music. 

SHE 

Lo! we are both that which has been from the be- 
ginning, which shall be at the goal whithersoever 
Time reaches. 

HE 

The dear ones we loved who have gone before us, 
the sweet ones who shall be yours when age over- 

127 



CAPRICCIOS 

takes us, lo! in a circle of angelic splendor, gyre 
upon gyre of ecstatic luminous faces, glories of 
heaven attained and incarnate, they engird us, 
they sing to us divine melodies, they weave the 
dance of mystical wonder around us. 

THE MANY JOYS 

The grass sweeps lightly across the meadow in the 
springtime, sweeps like a sweet green tune across 
the earth, bathing it in music of the just returned 
year; the fine fleet ripples move gaily across the 
river; if you bend the ear, you can hear their mirth 
and murmur, and understand their secret happi- 
ness; the winds are full of love as they lift the 
leaflets, and speed from light-poised slender- 
pointed greenery into the heart of the golden sun- 
shine above and around them; the sunbeams far 
off on the mountains touch the rocks, and their 
barren brown ruggedness answers with a deep- 
hued golden glow of somber resplendence, with 
sacred and slow and sober movements of rejoicing; 
fathers walking beside the skipping children, 
mothers holding the babbling babes in their arms, 
smile answering to smile in each other's faces, 
gladden and brighten with the growth of the sea- 
son; up in the heavens a deeper blue curves in- 
ward, filled with a light from sources beyond; 

128 



CAPRICCIOS 

farther and higher the encircling flood of delight 
reaches and rolls till no uttermost limit is not pene- 
trated and permeated with its enchantment. 

SHE 

I feel myself becoming many joys, even as the sea 
knows itself a-glitter in myriad points ; I float forth 
into a severance, high, divine, even as the night 
blooms forth into her countless stars; I divide into 
a multitude of visioning hopes even as the garden 
shows in spring her affluence of great flowers. 

THE ONE JOY 

The sheaves of the rays of light are gathered back 
into the sun ; the rivers from mountain and moor 
flow back to the sea; the days that are dead, the 
hours that are to be, are here in the now ; all hopes 
are brought back into the one sweet hope, all lives 
return to the life whence they sprung; dreams re- 
volve around the one great dream in a glad dance, 
joys are broken blossoms from the one great joy; 
a single white rose is the soul of the world, its 
multiform petals cling around its golden heart ; the 
voices that sing repeat the pure theme; from the 
single note in a flame-winged descent came all 
the melodies of soul and bliss; the single note 
brings them back, and all song murmurs and 
sounds at home in its heaven. 

129 



CAPRICCIOS 

HE 

There is but one end to life and thought and hope, 
and we are the one joy that is in all that is. 

THE END. 



130 



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